Normally this would be a sweet peg for a Mark Steyn “America Alone” allusion, but scroll down to pages 6-7 of the PDF and eyeball the graph and you’ll quickly see why that would be inapt. Of 21 countries surveyed, only four have actually gotten tougher on Iran over the last year as its “cheat and retreat” dithering has wore on: Israel, Turkey, South Korea, and … China. Any theories on that last one? Israel is self-explanatory, Turkey may fear Iranian encroachment on Iraq, South Korea may be spooked by the specter of Kim, but what’s to explain the change in Chinese opinion? They’ve been covering Iran’s six in the Security Council since the great nuke kabuki began.
With one exception, the shift towards “softer measures” against Tehran doesn’t exceed 18 points in any country. I’ll leave you to follow the link to see what the exception is and offer any hunches as to why.
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