North Korea, Iran Top List of U.S. Enemies

While Canada and Great Britain are still seen as America’s top allies, most Americans also continue to think of Iran and North Korea as the nation’s worst enemies. 

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 75% of American Adults view Iran is an enemy of the United States, while only five percent (5%) believe the Middle Eastern country is an ally.  Thirteen percent (13%) rate it as somewhere in between the two.  (To see survey question wording, click here).

The number of voters who see Iran as an enemy is little changed from August of last year, but is up five points from August 2009. Fifty-five percent (55%) of Likely U.S. Voters now think it is at least somewhat likely that the United States will end up in a war with Iran in the next five years or so, but that includes only 17% who say it’s Very Likely.

North Korea falls just behind Iran, with 72% who regard it as America's enemy.  Just nine percent (9%) of adults say North Korea is an ally of the United States, while 11% say it's somewhere in between. North Korea has topped the U.S. enemies list for the past two years.

While nearly half of U.S. voters think America should get its troops out of Western Europe and Japan, only 30% believe our troops should be withdrawn from South Korea.

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The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on October 19-20, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.