Professor Lord David Alton of Liverpool described the court ruling as the end to a decade-long ordeal that the Iranian opposition have been forced to endure.
He wrote in the Washington DC news website The Hill: “The Court determined that there was no evidence to support charges of terrorism or financial misconduct against either the nine individuals or any other members of Iranian opposition.
“Equally important, in handing down the order of dismissal, the French investigative judge took the unprecedented step of affirming the group’s right to resist tyrannical rule and political repression in its native Iran.
“Without such a declaration it would have remained ‘open season’ for the campaign of demonization against the moderate and democratic NCRI while ignoring the well-documented, brutal crimes of the theocratic regime in Iran.”
The West was also too too willing to ignore human rights abuses in Iran to appease the regime during nuclear negotiations, Lord Alton said.
He added: “It is simply futile to endlessly appease a fundamentalist theocracy – as many Western nations have been doing in recent years. Winston Churchill memorably described the character of an appeaser ‘as one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last’. Feeding crocodiles is always dangerous and the West should tread with great care.”
He said of the French court ruling: “Putting the issue of their legitimacy to rest, once and for all not only gives the NCRI an international mandate to persist in its opposition to the Iranian regime; it could also encourage and provide a similar mandate to all moderate opposition group that challenge the extremism which is still far too prevalent throughout the Middle East.
“Be clear, the vindication of the NCRI is a blow to the Iranian regime.”
The US should not now seek an alliance with the Iranian regime to fight Islamic State while Iran’s leaders have said any coalition would be contingent upon America and its allies accepting the repressive Syrian dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, Lord Alton said.
He added: “Accepting such an ultimatum would have been disastrous to Western interests in the region, to say nothing of the abnegation of Western values – including respect for human rights and the rule of law. But the voices in favour of appeasing and co-operating with Iran were so insistent that there seemed to be genuine danger of the US and its partners acceding to Iran’s ultimatum.
“The same distorted thinking led to several western governments, eager to have better relations with Iran, becoming complicit in the now-discredited attacks on the moderate opposition of the NCRI.
“The choice has always been between defending moderate Muslims, even when they are not in power in Middle East, or in cooperating with extremists simply because they have a government behind them.
“Too often, the US, the UK and others, have chosen the latter option – leading to any number of unintended consequences. But if, instead of appeasing and feeding the crocodiles, they form genuine alliances with moderate, democratic and secular organisation, they will surely find that there is more than enough manpower to overcome the barbaric atrocities that continue to plague and threaten the stability in the Middle East.”