TEHRAN: United States is plotting to topple Tehran leadership through a 'soft revolution', an Iranian minister said yesterday.

Iran's Intelligence Minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said he believed US has dropped the idea of attacking the country and is working with the help of intellectuals to undermine and discredit Iran's leaders.

"The first one which the Americans are leading ... is to create disputes and divisions among the revolutionary forces."

He said they were also trying to portray President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government as "useless in order to ready the ground for the entrance of some of their own elements into the government".

Mohseni-Ejei said: "This plot will not be successful."

Asked about the Iranian minister's comments, Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said: "The Iranian people clearly deserve a government that provides good jobs and services for its citizens and a peaceful foreign policy, not fuel rationing and support of terrorism, but decisions about their government will be made by the people of Iran."