Bombing won't overthrow ruling clerics, Iran dissidents say

PARIS, March 11 - A senior official from a Paris-based Iranian opposition group said on Thursday that the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran would not topple the clerical leadership, arguing that only a popular uprising backed by internal resistance could do so. Read more at straitstimes.com.

PARIS, March 11 - A senior official from a Paris-based Iranian opposition group said on Thursday that the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran would not topple the clerical leadership, arguing that only a popular uprising backed by internal resistance could do so.

Almost two weeks of bombing have killed around 2,000 people in Iran including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and damaged much of its military and security apparatus.

Iran has responded in kind, throwing global energy markets and transport into chaos and spreading the conflict across the Middle East, while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has tightened its grip on power and threatened to crush any unrest.

"The 12-day war in June, and the current war, now in its 12th day, proved that bombings cannot overthrow the regime," Mohammad Mohaddesin, head of foreign policy at the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told a news conference.

"Even if you have 50,000 armed soldiers on the ground, you need the support of Iranian people. You need a popular uprising. The combination of this 50,000 or 20,000 or any other number with a popular uprising, then you have this power to overthrow the regime."

Mohaddesin said he did not consider a deployment of U.S. ground troops realistic.