She said that the absolute majority-vote in the US congress in support of the Iran Freedom Act and the statement by 355 representatives from both parties in the Congress indicate that both Republicans and Democrats consider Iranian regime as a serious threat. The US congresswoman added that this was a new development among US representatives considering Iran as an extra-ordinary threat.

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BOI – The British weekly The Sunday Telegraph reflected the views of some experts on Iran and the outcome of current crisis with mullahs' nuclear ambitions. The experts' views are as follows: Prof Paul Rogers, the author of the Oxford Research Group's report on Iran:

Prof Paul Rogers, the author of the Oxford Research Group's report on Iran:
"There is a real probability of military conflict. The immediate consequence could do serious damage to Iran's nuclear programme, but that would be deceptive. The Americans do not have the troops for a regime change and an attack would strengthen the Iranian regime, spark another oil crisis and could encourage the Iranians to go hell for leather for nuclear weapons."

Dr Rosemary Hollis, the research director at the Chatham House think-tank:
"There is so much opposition that I don't see an attack as imminent."

Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board from 2001 to 2003:
"Whether Iran's nuclear weapons programme ends with a whimper or a bang is up to the Iranians. If the UN does its job, by blocking Iran's nuclear weapon ambitions, it may be possible to avoid a more kinetic solution."

Dr Olivia Bosch, a former weapons inspector in Iraq:
"The rhetoric is disproportionate to the capability that Iran has."

Alex Vatanka, the US security editor for Jane's Information Group:
"The situation is not urgent."

Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran:
"I do not agree with foreign military intervention. However, if the international community and the Security Council hesitate in adopting a firm policy on Iran, the regime would obtain the only thing it needs to acquire nuclear weapons, namely time. Then we would be facing an Islamic fundamentalist regime, the leading state sponsor of terrorism, armed with nuclear weapons. This would make war inevitable."

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By RAMESH SEPEHRRAD
UPI Outside view Commentator

United Press International (UPI) - WASHINGTON - Last November, before Iraq's election, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad received permission from President Bush to open direct dialogue with Iran on the issue of security in Iraq. In an interview with the Newsweek magazine last year, Khalilzad said: "I've been authorized by the president to engage Iranians as I engaged them in Afghanistan directly." The talks never took place because Iran was confident that Iraqi elections in December of 2005 will swing in favor of Tehran's Islamic Republic hence no need to have talks with the "Great Satan."

Three months later, on March 15, 2006, in a mullah-style choreographed setting, Iraqi Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the pro-Tehran Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq said, "I demand the leadership in Iran to open a clear dialogue with America about Iraq." The day after, Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator and secretary of the country's Supreme National Security Council told reporters, "We agree to (talks with the United States)." So, how is it

that such remarks come from Iran's top nuclear negotiator instead of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki?

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The signatories to the declaration including 55 Iraqi judges, bar association, Iraqi lawyers’ union members, 1,500 women Lawyers, cited legal opinions by pre-eminent Iraqi and international Jurists stressing that terrorist listing of the PMOI has no legal basis.
 
In a press conference in Baghdad, the Association of Independent Jurists in Defense of Human Rights in Iraq announced that 12,000 distinguished Iraqi lawyers and jurists had signed a declaration, urging the removal of Iran’s main opposition organization, the PMOI, from the list of terrorist organizations in the European Union and the US.

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By Jubin Afshar

The California Chronicle - The formation of the Mujahedeen in the 1960s was a response to the failure of the reform politics of Mehdi Bazargan’s “Freedom Movement” and the “National Front,” as well as the Shah's elimination of all peaceful political activity.

The early Mujahedeen were young and dedicated Muslim Iranians who sought an end to the Shah’s despotism and the formation of a free and democratic society in Iran. It was natural that as the United States supported the Shah, the Mujahedeen would oppose US interference in Iranian politics as did every other legitimate Iranian opposition. The discourse on the MEK or any other Iranian political group’s views about US policy in Iran in that era should be conducted in the context of the dominant intellectual influences of the era and the natural antipathy to perceived US backing for the Shah.

As Dr. Safavi pointed out in his response to Rubin, the Bush Administration has presented a critical review[5] of the US foreign policy position that support for undemocratic leaders in the Middle East could achieve stability. Such a position only led to both lost credibility and instability. The correct policy should have been to support democracy as it remains today. The Mujahedeen’s opposition to US support of the Shah was not as Lopez correctly points out “because of any enmity towards Americans or ideological hostility to concepts of secular democracy,” but a natural reaction to then US support for the Shah’s corrupt dictatorship. Indeed, as cunning as Ayatollah Khomeini was, he leveraged anti-American sentiment within Iranian society to consolidate his regime and push the democratic opposition, including the Mujahedeen, to the fringes by branding them agents of "US imperialism." Regrettably, he was greatly assisted in this undertaking by the Communist Tudeh Party.

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Bloomberg - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iran faces ``deeper isolation'' if it persists with its nuclear program and the U.S. doesn't rule out any option in its efforts to persuade Tehran to cease uranium enrichment.

`Thus far Iran has not been interested in any of the offers put to it,'' Rice said following a speech in the northwest England electoral constituency of U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. Iran faces ``deeper isolation'' unless it cooperates, she said.

``It isn't possible to conceive'' of enrichment taking place on Iranian soil and the Bush administration never takes anything ``off the table'' in its policy toward the Middle Eastern country, although military action is not on the agenda now, she said

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By Louis Charbonneau

Reuters - BERLIN - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday that it was up to Iran to ensure a diplomatic resolution of its nuclear standoff with the West, which suspects Tehran is secretly developing atomic weapons. The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a statement on Wednesday calling on Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment programme, which can produce fuel for atomic power plants or weapons, and asked the U.N.'s Vienna-based nuclear agency to report back on Tehran's compliance in 30 days.

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BOI – On Wednesday 29 March 2006 the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom held an evening reception in the Strangers Dining Room of the British Parliament to celebrate the Iranian New Year.  The Iranian New Year celebrations mark the beginning of spring. It is a time of great joy and family celebrations that are shared by people of all faiths in many countries that trace their history back through the centuries to the ancient Mesopotamian civilisation and the Persian Empire.

At the event, a special ceremonial table was set, called sofreh-ye haft-sinn (literally "seven dishes' setting," each one beginning with the Persian letter sinn). The number seven has been sacred in Iran since antiquity, and the seven dishes stand for the seven angelic heralds of life-rebirth, health, happiness, prosperity, joy, patience, and beauty.

The event was hosted by the Rt. Hon. the Lord Archer of Sandwell, QC and was attended by over 50 members of both Houses of Parliament from all three major political parties, as well as legal personalities and prominent members of the Anglo-Iranian community in the United Kingdom.

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CBS News - A top Iranian envoy defiantly rejected a U.N. Security Council demand for a halt in uranium enrichment, saying Thursday that Tehran's activities are "not reversible," despite new calls to reconsider from the United States, its key European allies, Russia and China.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Tehran's chief representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said "it is impossible to go back to suspension.

"This enrichment matter is not reversible," he said in a telephone call from Vienna, Austria.

Iran's defiance cast a pall on a meeting of top officials of the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany meant to demonstrate consensus on confronting Tehran over its nuclear program. After two hours of talks that were twice as long as planned, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the six nations were "united."

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Dominique Lefevre, mayor of the provincial capital Cergy and also the chairman of the Cergy's City Council, Mr. Jean-Pierre Bequet, mayor of Auvers-sur-Oise, Jean-Pierre Muller, and Philippe Legrand, mayors of two other cities were among the guests at the reception.

In their New Year's messages, they expressed solidarity with the Iranian resistance, specially the residents of Camp Ashraf, home to thousands of PMOI members in Iraq.

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The French friends of the Iranian Resistance also wished a successful year for the President-elect and all members of the Resistance in their struggle to establish freedom and democracy in Iran. They gave reassurances of their ongoing support for Iranian people until they gain their freedom.

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Mrs. Rajavi called for comprehensive sanctions against the regime to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons.

The President-elect of the Iranian Resistance described last night’s Security Council Statement as a useful and necessary step.  “The only way to prevent the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism from arming itself with nuclear weapons, is to completely abandon appeasement and act firmly and quickly against the mullahs,” Mrs. Rajavi said.

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The 15-member Security Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a non-binding statement giving Iranian regime 30 days to abandon its uranium enrichment activities, ending a weeks-long impasse.

Germany called the talks in Berlin to map out a long-term strategy on how to contend with mullahs' refusal to halt uranium enrichment, which could be used to build a nuclear bomb.

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Agence France Presse - The commander of US forces in the Middle East, General John Abizaid, said in an interview with AFP Tuesday that Iranian intelligence agents were operating inside Iraq.
 
"There are clearly Iranian intelligence agents operating inside Iraq and Iranian-produced explosives have found their way across the border," Abizaid told AFP in Amman.

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