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President Donald Trump said Sunday that Iran’s new leader is “not going to last long” without U.S. approval as Operation Epic Fury continues into its second week.
“He’s going to have to get approval from us,” Trump told ABC News in an interview. “If he doesn’t get approval from us he’s not going to last long. 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,” the president continued.
Trump’s 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.
Kashmiri Shiite Muslims carry pictures of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as they march in a protest rally on the fourth day of mourning in Magam, Jammu and Kashmir, on March 4, 2026. (Faisal Khan/Anadolu/Getty Images)
Mohammadmehdi Mirbaqeri, who serves on Iran’s 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.”
ABC News reported that Trump said it’s possible he would be in favor of someone with ties to the old regime.
“I would, in order to choose a good leader I would, yeah, I would. There are numerous people that could qualify,” he said.
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President Donald Trump confirmed the U.S. launched strikes on Iran on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (The White House via X Account/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The Associated Press reported that several figures are being viewed as potential successors to Iran’s supreme leadership. They include:
- Mojtaba Khamenei — Son of late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
- Ali Reza Arafi — Senior Shiite cleric
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- Hassan Rouhani — Former president of Iran
- Hassan Khomeini — Grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic
- Mohammed Mehdi Mirbagheri — Head of the Islamic Cultural Center in Qom
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Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Iranian leadership 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.”
“It does not matter what his name is or the place where he hides,” Katz said.
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