By Jerry Guo

The conventional wisdom is that whatever Iranians think of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, they generally support their president's drive to build nuclear weapons. Not so. The more Ahmadinejad resists Western pressure to abandon nukes, the more his people wish he would stop. A recent survey by WorldPublicOpinion.org reveals that regular Iranians' support for the regime to develop the bomb has dropped to 38 percent, from 51 percent last year. Even support for developing nuclear energy, which a whopping 89 percent favored a year ago, is backed by only half the population now. 

Opposition to nukes has grown since Ahmadinejad won a disputed election in June, then cracked down hard on his rivals. So when Western officials condemned Iran after the latest revelation about its nuclear program--the discovery of a secret enrichment plant--many Iranians were just as critical, even if they no longer dare say so in public. "We don't like a nuclear Islamic Republic," says a 34-year-old Tehran accountant, requesting anonymity due to the security crackdown. Others say the public is starting to see nukes less as a point of national pride and more as the source of Iran's international isolation, and a cover Ahmadinejad uses to divert attention from a fraying economy. Public opinion won't be enough to deter Ahmadinejad's nuclear ambitions. But his brinksmanship with the West may just be the sideshow if he gets slapped with sanctions and a disgruntled home crowd says enough is enough.