A near majority of voters agree that the US should be willing to use force to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

The Hill poll also showed that there was a substantial majority of Americans who fear an Iranian terrorist attack on US soil:

Nearly half of likely voters think the United States should be willing to use military force to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to this week's The Hill Poll.

Forty-nine percent said military force should be used, while 31 percent said it should not and 20 percent were not sure.

Sixty-two percent of likely voters said they were somewhat or very concerned about Iran making a terrorist strike on the United States, while 37 percent said they were not very concerned or not at all concerned about it.

Nearly half - 49 percent - of likely voters also said they opposed cutting military spending to balance the federal budget, while 40 percent said it should be reduced.

But 52 percent said the U.S. military's presence in Europe and Korea should either be reduced (42 percent) or eliminated (10 percent), while 36 percent said those forces should be retained and 5 percent said they should be increased.

Although the Iranians deny pursuing nuclear weapons, few outside of Tehran believe the claim, and how to prevent such a scenario has become a hot election-year issue.

Iran is not stupid enough to directly attack the US. More than likely, if they decided to hit us, they would use one of their numerous proxies. Or perhaps they would look the other way while al-Qaeda, who continues to have a presence in Iran, planned an attack on us.

It would be an escalation for President Obama to announce that any attack from an Iranian proxy or an al-Qaeda attack planned on Iranian soil would be considered an attack by Tehran. But given the circumstances, it would make perfect sense to do so.