U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday said he believes he should play a role in choosing Iran’s next supreme leader following the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dismissing Khamenei’s son as an unacceptable successor. “Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy,” Trump told Axios in an interview, drawing a comparison to Venezuela, where interim president Delcy Rodriguez has cooperated with him under threat of violence after the United States ousted her boss, Nicolas Maduro.
Trump told the news outlet that the United States would likely return to war within five years without a favourable leader in Iran.
“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump was quoted as saying by the news outlet. It remains unclear how Trump could play any role in Iran’s selection of a new supreme leader, a process determined by an assembly of senior Shiite clerics who are largely opposed to the United States.
However, his comments suggest a willingness to engage with someone from within Iran rather than attempt to overthrow the government, which has been a staunch adversary of the U.S. since the 1979 revolution that ousted the pro-Western shah.
The late shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, has proposed returning as a transitional leader before Iran drafts a new constitution as a secular democracy. On Thursday, Pahlavi also declared that any newly appointed supreme leader in Iran would be illegitimate.
Ali Khamenei, who governed Iran since 1989 with hardline policies including domestic repression and confrontations with neighboring states, was killed on Saturday in an Israeli strike amid escalating conflict involving Israel and the United States.
His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, is viewed as one of the potential successors to his father, who was only the second supreme leader after revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
