DONALD Trump must stage an Iraq-style mass invasion to have any chance of toppling Iran’s regime, an opposition leader has warned.
Mohammad Mohaddessin, who was jailed for daring to oppose rulers, said hundreds of thousands of troops would have to flood Tehran.
Despite Trump‘s rallying cry to Iranians to “take back their country” just hours into the war, the regime is still clinging to power two months on.
The Sun previously told how its “final pillar”, the ruthless Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, will “stop at no crime” to protect the regime.
Activists and analysts alike have warned it will take more than foreign intervention and bombings to put the final nail in the tyranny’s coffin.
Mohaddessin, the president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said Trump would have to deploy a vast number of soldiers deep into enemy territory.
He said given the sheer size of the nation, it would be extremely difficult – if not impossible – to overthrow the regime just through bombings.
Strikes coupled with sanctions weaken it, Mohaddessin added, but would never be enough to spark a revolution.
He told The Sun: “To overthrow the regime, you need soldiers, forces on the ground. If the US wants to overthrow the regime, it needs soldiers on the ground, just as they did in Iraq in 2003.
“The Americans can send a commando team to Tehran for a specific operation, just as they did to rescue a pilot. But they cannot occupy Tehran [with a small number of troops].
“If they want to occupy Tehran, they must send ground troops from the borders all the way to Tehran.
“Tehran is far from Iran’s western borders – 500 to 600km away – and far from its eastern borders – 800 to 900km away – even farther from the southern borders, and a few hundred kilometres from the northern borders.
“Therefore, it is impossible to occupy Iran with a few thousand soldiers.
“Hundreds of thousands of soldiers would be needed to liberate Tehran or to occupy Iran, a country with a population of over 92 million.”
The regime’s future appears to be hanging by a thread following the obliteration of much of its nuclear empire by the US and Israel.
Many of its top brass – including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – have also been wiped out.
Iran’s first Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power during the revolution of 1979 – ousting the Shah empire and transforming the state into a theocratic Islamic republic.
His bloody rule was taken over by Khamenei following his death a decade later.
Since then, Tehran has ramped up its nuclear ambitions and become an increasingly bigger threat to not only the Middle East, but the West too.
In a clear sign the regime is bleeding, Khamenei’s heir son Mojtaba has not been seen since he assumed power.
Courageous Iranians told The Sun last month they are waiting for their moment to finally end the regime once and for all.
Trump putting boots on the ground inside Iran could spark the final deathblow to the fanatical regime – and inspire an internal uprising.
Mohaddessin said: “You should also take into account the fact that the Iranian people are very patriotic people.
“They are not in favour of their country being occupied.
“Of course, they like and ask for other countries, foreign countries, the US or European countries to support them, but they do not want their country to be occupied.”
The ex-political prisoner said there is a “clear” strategy to overthrow the regime.
He said: “First, public uprising, the uprising of the people. And second, the organised resistance movement, the resistance units within Iran.
“Iranian society is a very, very discontented and volatile society.
“Inflation has reached 75 per cent according to official figures, the highest level of inflation since World War Two.
“And unemployment is somewhere around 25 per cent.
“The Iranian people want freedom; they want democracy. Therefore, a popular uprising is very important and very likely.”
In almost half a century of iron-fist ruling, Iranians have suffered economic hardship, repeated crackdowns – and untold bloodshed, including relentless executions of anyone who dared speak out against the regime.
During January’s bloody protests, up to 40,000 were killed, human rights groups say – while witnesses told The Sun how they saw children gunned down, bodies burnt with acid, and protester’s limbs broken.
Describing themselves as “walking shadows”, they live in fear – and now see a flicker of hope to finally be free from the shackles of the Islamic state.
It comes as more than 1,600 people were executed in the last year in the country’s highest kill count since the post-Iraq war massacre of 1989.
Mohaddessin was himself was jailed after being arrested in 1975 by the Shah’s secret police over his links to the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
He was tortured behind bars and after the Islamic regime began its reign of terror and executions in the 1980s, he was forced into exile and fled to Paris.
“As long as this regime exists, they cannot put aside torture, execution, pressure on the people because the existence of the regime, the survival of the regime, is based on two elements,” Mohaddessin added.
“First, suppression inside Iran, execution and other forms of, other kinds of suppression.
“Second, to export terrorism and fundamentalism and warmongering behind of its borders.
“The best solution to decrease the level of executions is some kind of international condemnation, international punishment to the regime, who massacred 120,000 political prisoners in the last decades, including outside Iran.”
It comes as Tehran’s Revolutionary Guards opened fire at vessels crossing the Strait of Hormuz yesterday in a major re-escalation that has tested the fragile two-week ceasefire.
And Trump has warned that US forces will have to “start dropping bombs again” if Iran does not concede to Washington‘s demands to give up its stash of highly-enriched uranium.
Iran has doubled down on its pledge to restrict ships passing through the waterway as long as the US blockade of Iranian ports remains in place.
Mediators are now scrambling to secure further talks before the ceasefire expires this week.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/16243695/trump-iraq-invasion-iran-regime/