U.S. President Donald Trump has said Iran’s next leader will not be in power for long if he is not approved by the United States.
“If he doesn’t get approval from us he’s not going to last long,” Trump told ABC News on March 8.
“We want to make sure that we don’t have to go back every 10 years, when you don’t have a president like me that’s not going to do it.”
Trump’s comments came after the panel that will choose Iran’s next leader revealed that it had reached a majority consensus, according to Assembly of Experts member Ayatollah Mohammad Mahdi Mirbagheri.
There are still “some obstacles” that stand in the way before they can name the new leader, according to a local news agency.
The panel allegedly disagreed over whether they should meet in person to finalize the decision before the name is announced, Iranian state media reported. Last week the building of the Assembly of Experts in Qom, Iran, was struck in an Israeli airstrike.
The next leader likely will not be named until after Khamenei’s funeral, according to media in Iran.
One of the members of the panel, Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari Alekasir, suggested that an in-person meeting would only benefit Iran’s enemies and “harm the revolution.”
“This is an extraordinary situation, the assembly cannot meet in a plenary,” Alekasir said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi confirmed on March 8 that the “interim leadership council” is in charge until the new leader takes his post.
“A new supreme leader is going to be elected soon by the Assembly of Experts,” Araghchi said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on March 8.
Araghchi would not confirm whether Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei would be the next leader, even though he has been rumored to take the top spot.
“Nobody knows,” Araghchi said. “There are lots of rumors around but you know, we have to wait for the Assembly of Experts to convene and vote for the supreme leader and the one who is elected by them.”
Israeli security sources told Epoch Magazine in Israel that the son of the eliminated leader was wounded in an Israeli air force strike on the bunker of his father, who had been killed at the start of the war in a different location.
The son would likely continue the father’s policies. He also has close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and influence with local clerics.
Araghchi would not say whether he supported Mojtaba Khamenei to take over the regime but he suggested that no other country should be involved in the decision.
“We allow nobody to interfere with our domestic affairs,” Araghchi said.
“They are wasting their time,” Trump told Axios last week. “[Ali] Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodríguez] in Venezuela.”
Trump previously said the potential new leaders that his administration would have preferred were dead.
The talks over the regime’s new leadership came as Israeli forces launched a large attack on Iran overnight.
The Israeli military struck fuel depots near Tehran, Iran, and on March 8 announced that it had hit more than 400 military infrastructure targets, including ballistic missile launchers and additional weapons production sites.
