NCRI - In a report by Claude Salhani in the UPI the threat of fundamentalism stemming from Iran was the subject and a member of the Iranian opposition described it as to be serious. The following are excerpts from the UPI report published yesterday:

Iran's maverick President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad admitted a few weeks ago that the Islamic Republic was enriching uranium. And the world took notice. Yet far more dangerous, says a member of the Iranian opposition, Iran is also "enriching Islamic fundamentalism." And yet few are doing anything about it.
    
"A nuclear weapon does not have as much power as fundamental Islam," Nasser Rashidi, executive director of the National Coalition of pro-Democracy Advocates, an Iranian umbrella group opposed to the regime of the ayatollahs, told United Press International Wednesday.

A bomb is bomb, but "radical Islam is a philosophy. It is far more powerful," said Rashidi.
    
The Iranian dissident was speaking just as the U.S. House approved a bipartisan legislation -- The Iran Freedom Support Act -- that tightens existing sanctions on Iran, urges American divestment from companies investing in Iran's petroleum sector, and supports aiding democratic forces in Iran. The bill was passed 397-21. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen R-FL., and Congressman Tom Lantos, D-CA, who were instrumental in getting the bill passed, are now hoping for similar legislation from the Senate, where the issue is currently under consideration. Before the bill can become law, it needs to be approved by the Senate and signed by the president. The Bush administration, however, is not too hot on the bill.
    
Supporters of H.R. 282 say that the bill will help choke off funds that the Islamic republic could use to build nuclear weapons because it tightens existing sanctions against Iran, ensuring that companies are no longer able to skirt the system by investing in Iran's energy sector through off-shore subsidiaries.
     
Rashidi, the opposition official, believes that the mullahs governing Iran "would love to be bombed. It would give them an excuse for a war. They need an external excuse in order to put more pressure on the Iranian people," said Rashidi.
    
"Why is Iran building a bomb today? Iran doesn't want money, they don't want guns," says Rashidi, "they want recognition," and they believe a nuclear bomb will give them just that.