Trump signals three potential successors to Iran’s supreme leadership

US President Donald Trump stated he has three potential candidates in mind to lead Iran, speaking in a phone interview with The New York Times.

In a six-minute interview with the newspaper, the US leader said he has “three very good choices” but declined to name them.

The New York Times noted that on March 1, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani stated that the Islamic Republic would be governed by an interim committee until a successor to the Supreme Leader is selected.

Trump refused to respond when asked whether he believed Larijani was capable of leading Iran’s government.

The president laid out several, at times conflicting, scenarios for how a new administration might emerge following the targeted killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had governed the country for more than thirty years before being killed in an airstrike on February 28.

When questioned further about his strategy for a transfer of power, Trump said he hoped Iran’s elite military units — including senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who have wielded significant authority and benefited from the current system — would lay down their arms and allow authority to pass to the Iranian people.

“They would really surrender to the people, if you think about it,” he noted.

By Jeyhun Aghazada