American Lawyer Says He'll Represent Iranian Regime if it Sues U.S.

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Legal Turncoat

A veteran American lawyer and political activist says he will represent the Iranian regime if it decides to sue the United States.

Iran's Press TV reports University of Illinois law professor Francis Boyle is urging Iranian leaders to sue Israel and the U.S. through the International Court of Justice in an effort to block further sanctions on its nuclear program and to discourage a military attack. He says, "Iran should sue these states immediately, convene an emergency hearing by the World Court and ask the court to indicate provisional measures of protection on behalf of Iran... basically a temporary restraining order."

Boyle is legal counsel to the provisional government of the Palestinian state. He published a book last year that encouraged the impeachment of President Bush.

Enquiring Minds

The National Enquirer says two of its reporters filed a criminal complaint with Beverly Hills Police charging that hotel security acted unlawfully while reporters were trying to question former North Carolina Senator John Edwards.

Reporters Alan Butterfield and Alexander Hitchen say they cornered Edwards in a bathroom at the Beverly Hilton Hotel early last Tuesday morning. They say this was after Edwards visited a woman The Enquirer says is his mistress and the mother of his love child.

A security guard who was on the scene confirmed to FOX News that the encounter did take place and that he helped Edwards escape.

The Enquirer reports that Edwards was trying to leave the hotel when the reporters, who were staying there, spotted him and began asking questions. The reporters say Edwards ran down a hallway and hid in a men's room and that is when hotel security intervened. They say that one guard threatened to break their camera and that the officers also violated several statutes of the California penal code.

Edwards, meanwhile, is refusing to comment on the story.

Extreme Ideas

Almost one-third of British Muslim students believe that killing in the name of Islam can be justified.

The Center for Social Cohesion interviewed 1,400 Muslim and non-Muslim students and found that 32 percent of Muslim students believe killing in the name of Islam is justifiable. Forty percent of Muslim students support the introduction of Islamic Sharia law into British law for Muslims and 33 percent support the creation of a world-wide caliphate or Islamic state.

Co-author Hannah Stuart says, "These results are deeply embarrassing for those who have said there is no extremism in British universities."

Up In Smoke

American taxpayers have spent more than $1 million funding research on smoking pipes known as hookahs — or water pipes — in Syria.

Cybercast News reports that Ken Ward of the University of Memphis says he and his associates in Syria have received a number of grants from the National Institutes of Health for the study. Part of the research aims to reveal whether smoking a hookah is as harmful as smoking cigarettes. Ward says the study is being carried out in Syria because hookahs have been used there for centuries.

But a spokesman for the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste says, "We question whether this is a national priority to figure out the problems of other countries. Let's figure out our problems and solve those."

— FOX News Channel's Zachary Kenworthy contributed to this report.