ABRAR: One of the important regional developments, which can greatly affect the political and military conditions, is the Iraqi parliamentary elections. This electoral race can eventually legitimize each and every development in the future Iraqi political structure. Furthermore, by holding this electoral race, Iraq would no longer be viewed as a country occupied by foreign forces on the international scene even if the interim government, which has itself been set up by the occupiers, supervised the elections. At this juncture, the people of Iraq welcome this momentous event as the only way to overcome the prevailing deadlock. Irrespective of its results, the electoral race will lead to the establishment of the parliament, which will be duty-bound to determine the next cabinet and compile the constitution.

MARDOMSALARI: What presently is crucial for our young society, which is experiencing a transient state, is to deal against age, gender, income, social and cultural differences. We also need to reach a balance between traditionalism and modernity. On the one hand some conservatives seem to misinterpret fundamental concepts and on the other the advocates of modernity fail to develop a correct understanding of the current affairs. The bottom line is that there are sources of nuisance in both the reformist and conservative camps. It is quite necessary that before something regrettable happens the senior members of both groupings think of ways for reaching a consensus over the ongoing developments so that the civil rights of the young members of the society would be upheld.

TOSEH: European Parliament in its most recent act of interference in Iranian affairs has denounced capital punishment and called on Iranian officials to present pieces of evidence that no longer criminals are stoned for being punished, as previously declared by the Islamic system. The European Parliament has also condemned machinations against journalists and webloggers and once again lambasted the waves of arrests of journalists. It is obvious that with the emergence of the reform movement, the judicial modus operandi has also changed for the better. Hence, the Europeans must present sufficient proof for their allegations. It is not logical to raise doubts about the legitimacy of the Islamic system on the basis of a few incidents only and use the issue of human rights as a pretext for exerting political pressure on Iran.

AFARINESH: A while ago, some MPs prioritized the plan for determining a ceiling for dower. Based on this plan, astronomical dowers should not be set as this way the youth would not be able to get married and a council should be established to determine the ceiling for dower in compliance with the dimensions of time and place. If this plan is ratified, the marriage registration offices would be obliged to refrain from registering marriages for which high dowers have been set. The compilers of this plan maintain that they intend to help the youth settle down. However, it seems that this plan cannot be helpful. The main reason is that in Islamic tenets the government does not set the dower and the couple in question are supposed to reach an agreement on the dower. Therefore, imposing restrictions of the sort would be unIslamic.

Since the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on Sept 11, 2001, the conventional wisdom among American policymakers has been that the United States, its allies and the entire international community have been forced to place the threat of international terrorism on top of their policy agendas.
Indeed, the notion that the "war on terrorism" has replaced the Cold War as the focal point of US national security is being treated now as an axiom by American officials and pundits, who continue to express their frustration with partners around the world who perceive terrorism as just one of many global threats.
In fact, the perceived threat of terrorism in the US has already been used to justify the launching of two major wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the expansion of US military presence worldwide, as well as the creation of a new huge bureaucracy in the form of the Department of Homeland Security.
The threat of terrorism has also been critical in helping to mobilize electoral support for "War President" George W. Bush and his unilateralist and nationalist foreign policy.
But can international terrorism be compared to the threat that the Soviet Union posed to the United States during the Cold War or that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan projected during World War II? While no one would challenge the observation that the death and destruction carried out by AlðQaeda on 9/11 were horrific, that event, as well as other terrorist attacks in the last three years, should be placed in historical context.
Not only should terrorism be seen as a marginal threat in geo-strategic terms, it could also prove to be a rather limited and manageable problem as far as domestic security in the US and other countries is concerned, argues John Mueller, the head of security studies at Ohio State University.
The number of people worldwide who die as a result of terrorism is generally only a few hundred a yearð-tiny compared to the numbers who die in car accidents and is closer to the number who drown in bathtubs in the United States.
Prof. Mueller notes that although there have been many deadly terrorist incidents in the world since 2001, all have relied on conventional methods and have not remotely challenged 9/11 quantitatively.
Hence, "assessed in broad but reasonable context, terrorism generally does not do much damage," suggests Prof. Mueller. Terrorism is rather rare andð-in appropriate, comparative contextð-not a very destructive phenomenon.
In a way, terrorists force us to redirect resources from sensible programs and future growth in order to pursue unachievable but politically popular levels of domestic security. From that perspective, terrorists have won an important victory that mortgaged our future.
For example, measures that delay airline passengers by half an hour could cost the American economy $15 billion a year.
What is needed is not a declaration of "a war" on terrorism, not to mention the sense of hysteria that is advanced by politicians in the media, but a convincing, coherent and nuanced answer to several questions:
"How worried should I be?"
"How much should I be willing to pay for a small reduction in probabilities that are already extremely low?"
The message that officials in Washington seem to be sending these days to the American public is: Be scared; be very, very scaredð-but go on with your lives. Such messages, as one critic put it, have helped create "a false sense of insecurity".
And that is exactly what the terrorists with their limited resources and power want to achieve.
Leon T. Hadar,
a research fellow in foreign policy studies at Cato Institute