Iranian Opposition: Military Strikes Alone Won’t Topple Tehran Regime

A leader of an Iranian opposition group based in Paris says the ongoing U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran cannot overthrow the country's religious leadership without popular support from within. The official argues that only a combination of internal uprising and external military pressure could bring down the current regime.

A high-ranking member of an Iranian opposition organization operating from Paris stated Thursday that the current U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran will fail to remove the nation’s religious rulers, contending that only widespread domestic revolt combined with internal resistance movements could achieve regime change.

The nearly two-week military operation has resulted in approximately 2,000 Iranian casualties, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while significantly damaging the country’s military infrastructure and security forces.

Tehran has retaliated with its own strikes, creating turmoil in worldwide energy markets and transportation systems while expanding hostilities throughout the Middle East region. Meanwhile, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has strengthened its control and issued warnings about suppressing any domestic unrest.

Mohammad Mohaddesin, who serves as foreign policy chief for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), addressed reporters about the military campaign’s limitations.

“The 12-day war in June, and the current war, now in its 12th day, proved that bombings cannot overthrow the regime,” Mohaddesin stated during his press briefing.

“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,” he explained.

Mohaddesin dismissed the possibility of American ground forces being deployed as unrealistic.

The NCRI, which goes by the Farsi designation Mujahideen-e-Khalq, remained on the U.S. terrorist organization list until 2012.

Iranian authorities have prohibited the group’s activities within the country, and its domestic support level remains uncertain. Nevertheless, alongside its main competitor—monarchist supporters of Reza Pahlavi, the deposed shah’s exiled son—it represents one of the few opposition movements capable of mobilizing followers.

While Mohaddesin conceded his organization lacks the capacity to single-handedly topple Iran’s government, he predicted that large-scale demonstrations similar to January’s protests, which authorities violently suppressed, would return after the bombing campaign ends and could ultimately tip the scales.

“I cannot say how many months or a year, but … this is the track of overthrowing the regime,” he stated.

Israeli leadership has indicated that weakening Iran’s security infrastructure to enable the Iranian population to determine their own future represents one of their military goals.