Trump’s comments came after the panel which will choose Iran’s next leader revealed it reached a majority consensus.
President Donald Trump said that Iran’s next leader won’t be in power for long if he isn’t 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 which will choose Iran’s next leader revealed it reached a majority consensus, according to Assembly of Experts member Ayatollah Mohammadmehdi Mirbaqeri.
The panel met on March 7 and planned to take one day to pick the successor of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed when the United States and Israel launched strikes in Iran on Feb. 28.
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 the Iranian city of Qom was struck in an Israeli air strike.
The next leader likely won’t be named until after Khamenei’s funeral, according to media outlets in Iran.
One of the members on 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.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi confirmed on Sunday that the “interim leadership council” is in charge until their 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 if Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, would be the next leader, even though his name has been rumored to take the top spot.
“Nobody knows,” Araghchi added. “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, Ali Khamenei, who had been killed at the start of the war in a different location.
By Jacki Thrapp
