President Trump warned Sunday that Iran's next supreme leader "is not going to last long" without American approval, delivering his most direct statement yet on who should govern the Islamic Republic as it scrambles to replace the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The message was blunt. Speaking to ABC News, Trump said the next leader must be vetted and approved by the White House.
"He's going to have to get approval from us. If he doesn't get approval from us, he's not going to last long."
Iran's Assembly of Experts is set to name the new supreme leader "within one day," according to local outlets. The assembly was said to have already chosen Khamenei's successor, though no official announcement has been made. The regime, now entering its second week of war, is attempting to project continuity. Trump is making clear that continuity is not on the table.
The leading candidate to succeed Khamenei is his own son, Mojtaba, 56, a regime hardliner with close ties to the Revolutionary Guards, the NY Post reported. He was initially believed to have been killed alongside his father in the Israeli airstrike that opened Operation Epic Fury. Israeli officials now believe he was injured by one of the early strikes of the war, according to the Times of Israel.
Mojtaba's reputation precedes him, and not favorably. By the 2000s, US diplomatic cables referred to him as "the power behind the robes." He was accused of meddling in elections. He was also notably treated for impotency in London. The profile of a man who operated in the shadows of a theocratic dictatorship, not exactly the reformer Iran's people need.
Trump has already rejected him outright. Last week, the president called Mojtaba "a lightweight" and "unacceptable."
"Khamenei's son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran."
The clerical establishment doesn't appear to care. Senior cleric Heidari Alekasir, one of the mullahs voting in the succession, seemed to relish the defiance, noting that "even the Great Satan has mentioned his name."
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi attempted to downplay the succession question on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, saying "nobody knows" who the next leader will be and insisting the world must wait for the Assembly of Experts to convene and vote.
Then came the predictable protest.
"We allow nobody to interfere in our domestic affairs. This is up to the Iranian people to elect their new leader."
This is a regime that has spent decades crushing its own people's attempts at self-governance. The Iranian people do not elect their supreme leader. The Assembly of Experts does, a body of senior clerics operating within a system designed to ensure the population has no real say. Araghchi's appeal to democratic sovereignty is the kind of line that only works if no one is paying attention.
The Iranian people have shown what they think of the regime in 2009, in 2019, and in 2022. They were met with bullets, beatings, and mass arrests every time. Araghchi invoking their will now is not principle. It is performance.
Trump's insistence on shaping Iran's leadership transition is not posturing for the sake of it. The president laid out the long view on Sunday, framing the current conflict as an opportunity to prevent the cycle from repeating.
"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."
"I don't want people to have to go back in five years and have to do the same thing, again, or worse, let them have a nuclear weapon."
This is the core argument. For decades, American policy toward Iran has been a loop of sanctions, negotiations, partial deals, violations, and escalation. The Obama-era JCPOA bought time at best and legitimized Iran's nuclear ambitions at worst. Every few years, the problem lands back on the desk of whoever occupies the Oval Office, usually worse than before.
Trump is signaling that this time should be different. The regime's supreme leader is dead. Its military infrastructure has been degraded. The president noted that Iran, which he said had plans "to attack the entire Middle East, to take over the entire Middle East," is now "a paper tiger."
"They are a paper tiger. They weren't a paper tiger a week ago, I'll tell you."
He also reiterated that he was still mulling whether to send troops on the ground in Iran to seize enriched uranium stockpiles, a move that would represent the most significant nonproliferation action in a generation. The fact that it is being discussed openly tells you where the leverage sits.
Trump indicated he could be open to letting someone from the previous regime take charge, as he did in Venezuela, suggesting the administration is less interested in imposing an outsider than in ensuring whoever rises to power understands the new reality.
The Assembly of Experts can vote for whomever it wants. The mullahs can install Mojtaba or any other hardliner and call it sovereignty. But the regime that existed two weeks ago no longer exists. Its founder is dead. Its military capacity is diminished. Its nuclear ambitions are the subject of active American deliberation.
Iran's clerics are choosing a leader. The question is whether they're choosing one who can survive the world they now inhabit.