Trump wants to be 'personally involved' in choosing Iran's next leader: Reports

President Donald Trump, on Thursday, told two separate publications that he wants to be "personally involved" in choosing Iran's next leader, as reports pointed to Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, having taken the reins as the new Supreme Leader of the country. In an interview with Axios, called Mojtaba a "lightweight." "They are wasting their time. Khamenei's son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela," Trump was quoted as saying.

Later, Reuters quoted the president as saying that he wants the U.S. to be "involved in the process of choosing the person who is going ​to lead Iran into the future." "We don't have to go ⁠back every five years and do this again and again," Reuters quoted Trump as saying. Trump also reportedly encouraged Iranian Kurdish forces to go ​on the offensive, stating that he'd be "all for it." At the time of writing this article, neither Trump nor the White House had announced any concrete plans towards selecting a leader who would lead Iran.

Trump's comments came as Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. and Israel's joint operation against Iran, continued through its fifth day. During a Tuesday briefing, the President suggested that "someone from within" the Iranian regime should lead the country. He, however, vaguely pointed out that "most of the people we had in mind are dead." "Now we have another group, they may be dead also, based on reports. So you have a third wave coming. Pretty soon, we're not going to know anybody," he had added. 

However, Trump critics have said that any such attempts would be detrimental for the U.S., leading to another "forever war" that Trump has historically opposed; the Supreme Leader is traditionally the purview of and selected by the Assembly of Experts, an 88-member body of senior Iranian clerics. "The deep entrenchment of Iran's corrupt political system, combined with its strategic positioning in the Middle East, makes regime change a profoundly destabilizing course of action," the Atlantic Council think tank wrote in a blog post. 

Additionally, several U.S. lawmakers, primarily Democrats, have questioned the President's intentions with the Iran war, citing regime change as a devastating option. "Donald Trump is dragging the United States into a war the American people do not want. Let me be clear: I am opposed to a regime-change war in Iran, and our troops are being put in harm’s way for the sake of Trump’s war of choice," former Vice President Kamala Harris wrote on X.