Donald Trump
US President Donald Trump said in an interview with Axios that he opposes Mojtaba Khamenei’s rise to power in Iran and intends to personally participate in the selection of the country’s new leader. “They’re wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is nothing. I should be involved in the appointment, just like I was involved with Delcy (Rodriguez) in Venezuela,” Trump said in an Axios interview released Thursday, February 5.
According to the American president, the 56-year-old son of the ayatollah killed in airstrikes is “unacceptable” to Washington, just like any other successor who continues the previous course – otherwise, he explained, the US would have to go to war again “in five years.” Earlier, Trump said he had “three very good candidates” for the post, but declined to name them, dw.com wrote.
Trump also assured that most members of the Iranian government will be able to keep their posts if Tehran starts cooperating with Washington – just as it did in Venezuela. The new leader, he said, should “bring harmony and peace to Iran.”
The main contender
Mojtaba Khamenei remains the main contender to become Iran’s supreme leader after his father’s death on Feb. 28. The new leader is to be elected by the Assembly of Experts, a council of 88 theologians. Mahmoud Rajabi, a member of its presidium, said March 4 that the process has already begun. Iranian opposition publication Iran International, meanwhile, claimed that Mojtaba had already been elected. Israel has said it would consider any new Iranian leader who continues on the previous course a “target for elimination.”
The transfer of power from father to son is not favored by the Shiite clergy, and Mojtaba’s appointment could cause discontent within the country, The New York Times sources said. U.S. intelligence, for its part, has questioned the very possibility of regime change in Iran.
Reuters sources reported that the probability of the opposition coming to power is assessed as extremely low – the backbone of the political and military system remains the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose representatives are unlikely to voluntarily give up their privileges. The country is now governed by a three-member interim council – President Masoud Pezeshkian, head of the judiciary Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei and Ayatollah Alireza Arafi.
It should be noted, however, that Mojtaba Khamenei is a cleric and has never held public office. As meduza.io notes, Khamenei is closely associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite unit of Iran’s armed forces.
