Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns says that the Iranian government's defiance of its international obligations poses "as profound and complicated a challenge as any we face in the world today." Testifying before the Senate Arms Services Committee, Mr. Burns said Iran's leaders are expanding Iran's nuclear program, and that a nuclear-armed Iran would severely threaten the security of the Middle East, and cause additional damage as well:
"It would seriously undermine the credibility of the United Nations and other international institutions and seriously undercut the nuclear nonproliferation regime at precisely the moment we are seeking to strengthening it." 
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Iran is heading at breakneck speed toward becoming a nuclear power, thereby endangering its neighbors, setting off an arms race in the volatile Middle East, supplying dirty bombs to terror groups, threatening U.S. allies in Europe, and even targeting the U.S. American people are asking the U.S. government to do something, but President Barack Obama has opted to do nothing, and that's not an option we can live with.
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WASHINGTON - While President Obama struggles to negotiate United Nations sanctions with teeth against Iran, a parallel campaign to turn up the heat is gaining momentum by pressuring American and foreign corporations individually to cut their business ties there.
Two giant American accounting firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young, disclosed this week that they no longer had any affiliation with Iranian firms, becoming the latest in a string of companies to publicly shun the Islamic republic. After a similar decision by KPMG this month, that leaves none of the Big Four audit firms with any ties to Iran. 
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Human rights groups and European diplomats said that Iran's violent post-election crackdown on demonstrators and opposition figures had undercut its campaign to serve in the rights council. The decision today, they said, reflected the Iranian government's realization that it could not muster the votes needed to prevail, even over a small country like the Maldives.
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WASHINGTON - A day after calling Iran a "festering sore," the top US senator on Friday urged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to work with lawmakers to ensure speedy approval of new sanctions against Tehran. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also pressed Clinton to patch up strained ties with Israel and help promote direct negotiations between the crucial Middle East ally and the Palestinians.
"I am writing to ask you to work with Congress to quickly complete action on the Iran sanctions legislation and to encourage you to support direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians," he wrote.
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