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
