Donald Trump has demanded the final say on who leads Iran after effectively handpicking Venezuela’s new president.
‘They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela,’ Trump told Axios, in response to reports that the slain ayatollah’s son Mojtaba is the frontrunner to succeed him.
‘[Ali] Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,’ Trump said, adding that the US would be back in a war within five years if the heir accedes as Iran’s Supreme Leader.
Mojtaba has survived US-Israeli airstrikes that wiped out his father and dozens of the Islamic regime’s top brass. He is a hardliner with close ties to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards paramilitary force and one of the most influential figures in the clerical establishment.
Iran has not yet announced a new leader but any involvement by the US would be considered anathema to the majority of Iran’s Shiite Muslims.
The assassinated ayatollah held a status akin to the Pope, and the religious and ideological stakes surrounding his succession are far more complex than the ousting of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.
Maduro’s capture went off without a hitch and without US casualties, with indications of pre-arrangement among factions within his own Chavista regime.
Rodriguez has since spoken with Trump and agreed to ship millions of barrels of oil to the US. Iran, by contrast, has shown no such appetite for accommodation, pressing on with a relentless bombing campaign against Israel, Arab states and American bases across the region.
President Donald Trump during a roundtable on the Ratepayer Protection Pledge in the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building near the White House in Washington, DC on Wednesday
Mojtaba Khamenei attends a demonstration in Tehran on May, 31, 2019
People run for safety as smoke rises after an airstrike in central Tehran, Iran, on Thursday
Trump’s extraordinary kingmaker role comes despite Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stating that the administration had no ‘regime change’ goal.
The White House has been at pains to clean up its messy messaging in recent days, with Karoline Leavitt outlining four defined goals: destroy its missile arsenal, annihilate its navy, permanently prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and dismantle its terrorist proxies.
Trump urged Iranians to rise up against the regime when he announced the strikes on Saturday and has since spoke to Kurdish militants in Iraq about a ground invasion.
Thousands of Kurdish fighters were pouring across the border last night in the first ground incursion since the conflict began.
The CIA has been in talks with Kurdish leaders to help arm their militants, according to CNN.
A regime change war risks ensnaring the US in a protracted conflict which the administration is at pains to tell the American people will not happen.
JD Vance insisted Monday that ‘there’s just no way that Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multiyear conflict with no clear end in sight.’
The Vice President told Fox News that Trump ‘is not going to rest until he accomplishes that all-important objective of ensuring that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon,’ in his first comments since the war broke out.
An F/A-18E Super Hornet, attached to Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 151, making an arrested landing on the flight deck of Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) in support of Operation Epic Fury on Wednesday
Oil tankers are seen off the coast of Fujairah, as Iran vows to fire on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, amid the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates
Two F/A-18 Super Hornets launch from the flight deck of Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) in support of Operation Epic Fury on Wednesday
U.S. Navy sailors assigned to Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Delbert D. Black participate in a replenishment-at-sea with fleet replenishment oiler USNS Henry J. Kaiser in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility in support of the Operation Epic Fury attack on Iran Wednesday
Trump initially stated that he expected the war to last four to five weeks, but has since warned it could last ‘far longer.’
Since the US and Israel launched the war, Iran has unleashed thousands of drones and ballistic missiles at Israel, American bases and embassies across the region, and energy facilities throughout the Gulf, with fire even directed toward Cyprus, Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Iran has shut the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil flows, sending prices soaring more than 10 percent in a single week, with Brent crude jumping from $72 to more than $82 a barrel.
The average gas price jumped 11 cents overnight Tuesday, hitting $3.11, the largest single-day spike since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the AAA said.
Tehran’s strategy is straightforward: inflict enough casualties and economic pain to spook America’s allies into pressuring Trump to back down.
The US and Israel have carried out hundreds of airstrikes on Iranian government, military and nuclear targets, killing 1,045 people inside Iran, according to Tehran.
Despite being greatly outgunned, Iran has kept firing ballistic missiles into Israel, killing 11 people and disrupting life for millions, with further casualties reported across Arab states.
