President Donald Trump said Sunday that Iran\u2019s new leader is ‘not going to last long’ without U.S. approval as Operation Epic Fury continues into its second week.<\/p>\n
‘He\u2019s going to have to get approval from us,’ Trump told ABC News<\/u> in an interview. ‘If he doesn\u2019t get approval from us he\u2019s not going to last long. We want to make sure that we don\u2019t have to go back every 10 years, when you don\u2019t have a president like me that\u2019s not going to do it.’<\/p>\n
‘I don\u2019t 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,’ the president continued.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s comments come after Iranian state media reported that a majority consensus had been reached on a new supreme leader following the Feb. 28 assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.<\/p>\n
Mohammadmehdi Mirbaqeri, who serves on Iran\u2019s Assembly of Experts, the clerical body tasked with selecting the supreme leader, did not offer any names but acknowledged to the Mehr News Agency that there are still ‘some obstacles.’<\/p>\n
ABC News reported that Trump said it\u2019s possible he would be in favor of someone with ties to the old regime.<\/p>\n
‘I would, in order to choose a good leader I would, yeah, I would. There are numerous people that could qualify,’ he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Associated Press reported<\/u> that several figures are being viewed as potential successors to Iran\u2019s supreme leadership. They include:<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Iranian leadership<\/u> in a post on X last week that any successor who tries to ‘destroy Israel, to threaten the United States and the free world and the countries of the region, and to suppress the Iranian people’ will be an ‘unequivocal target for elimination.’<\/p>\n ‘It does not matter what his name is or the place where he hides,’ Katz said.<\/p>\n\n
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