President Trump has demanded a personal role in appointing Iran’s next supreme leader to ensure a shift toward regional “harmony,” dismissing the late leader’s son as an unsuitable successor while citing his administration’s recent influence over the Venezuelan transition.
U.S. President Donald Trump declared in a Thursday interview with Axios that he must personally oversee the selection of Iran’s next supreme leader following the February 28 death of Ali Khamenei in a joint U.S.-Israeli military strike. Trump explicitly rejected the potential succession of the late leader’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, describing him as a “lightweight” and stating, “Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me.
We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran.” Drawing a parallel to recent U.S. intervention in South America, Trump remarked, “I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodríguez] in Venezuela,” referring to the leader who assumed power after U.S. forces captured Nicolás Maduro in January. Despite official Pentagon statements that “regime change” is not the objective of Operation Epic Fury, Trump warned that failing to install a leader who breaks from the previous regime’s policies could force the United States back into a shooting war with Iran “in five years.”