Khamenei’s son emerges as frontrunner to succeed him; Trump spurns Pahlavi as post-regime leader

Clerics said wary of naming Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader, fearing he’ll more likely be targeted by US and Israel; US president says ‘most of the people we had in mind’ to lead Iranian government are dead already

Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is the front-runner to succeed his father as the Islamic Republic’s next head, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

The report said that the senior clerics tasked with choosing the next supreme leader could announce their choice as early as Wednesday morning.

Quoting Iranian officials familiar with the deliberations, however, the report said the clerics have some reservations about declaring Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader, fearing it could increase the likelihood he will be targeted by the US and Israel.

The report added that the clerics held two virtual meetings on the matter on Tuesday.

The Times report came after the opposition outlet Iran International claimed that Mojtaba Khamenei, his father’s second-eldest son, had already been chosen by the Assembly of Experts as his father’s successor, citing “informed sources.”

Israel said Tuesday it blew up the building of the 88-strong Assembly of Experts tasked with electing the new supreme leader, and was awaiting information on the results of the strike. An Iranian media report said that the building, in Qom, was empty when the IDF announced hitting it.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday dismissed the exiled crown prince of Iran’s last shah as a potential successor to Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Tehran on Saturday, arguing that “someone from within” Iran might be a better fit.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said that many Iranian officials his administration had viewed as potential new leaders for the country had been killed in the US-Israeli campaign.

Trump has not publicly identified anyone whom he views as a credible future leader for Iran. And it’s unclear what, if any, outreach the White House had with Iranian officials since the war started.

“Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” he said in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office. “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.”

Trump said Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former shah, who is trying to position himself for a return should Iran’s Shiite theocracy fall, is not someone that his administration has considered in depth to take over leadership in Iran.

“It would seem to me that somebody from within, maybe, would be more appropriate,” Trump said, adding that it may make sense for “somebody that’s there, that’s currently popular, if there is such a person” to emerge from the power vacuum.

Trump’s comments came as he hosted German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for his first in-person engagement with a foreign leader since the US and Israel launched the war against Iran.

Trump said he wanted to avoid a “worst case” scenario where “somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person.”

“That could happen. We don’t want that to happen,” Trump added. “You go through this, and then in five years you realize you put somebody in who was no better.”

White House trying to counter criticism

The White House has stepped up its push to counter criticism that it moved unnecessarily quickly to launch a war of choice against Iran.

Trump’s decision to strike last week followed lengthy negotiations by the president’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner with the Iranians — talks the US increasingly viewed as an effort to stall any progress.

After the most recent round of discussions in Geneva, Switzerland, last week, Witkoff and Kushner told Trump that reaching a nuclear agreement similar to one that former US president Barack Obama struck in 2015 was possible, according to a senior administration official.

The official, who briefed journalists on condition of anonymity, described it as a potential “Obama-plus deal,” and Witkoff and Kushner believed such an agreement would take months, but was possible.

Still, even as they expressed their willingness to pursue diplomacy and “fight for every point that we can” if that’s what Trump wanted, the negotiators stressed to the president that the Iranians were not willing to make a deal that would be satisfactory to the US.

Trump snaps at the UK, Spain over lack of support

Meanwhile, Trump sharply criticized Britain and Spain for their reluctance to aid the US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

“This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump fumed about British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Starmer had initially blocked American planes from using British bases for the attacks on Iran that started on Saturday. He later agreed to let the United States use bases in England and on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to strike Iran’s ballistic missiles and their storage sites, but not to hit other targets.

Trump also said he was going to “cut off all trade with Spain,” the day after Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said his country would not allow the US to use jointly operated bases in southern Spain in any strikes not covered by the United Nations’ charter.

Trump disputes that Israel forced his hand

The president also sought to push back on criticism from some of his staunchest allies over the decision to go to war — questions that grew louder after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that the US had decided to strike because “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.”

“And we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio said.

But Trump rejected the notion that the White House had been dragged into the conflict by Israel.

“We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack,” Trump said. “If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”

Rubio on Tuesday echoed Trump’s insistence that the decision to attack Iran was made independent of Israel.

Merz said during his visit with Trump at the Oval Office that Germany is “looking forward to the day after” the Iran war is over.

He said Berlin wants to work with the US on a strategy for when the current Iranian government no longer exists.

“We are having a high interest in a common approach and common work and what we can do,” Merz said.

“And this is important not just for the Americans,” he said. “This is extremely important for Europe and extremely important for Israel and their security.”

Merz also noted surging oil prices were damaging the world economy, laying down an argument for finding a quick endgame to the conflict.

The president acknowledged that oil and gas prices were going to rise as the US remains engaged in the strikes, yet argued that it would be fleeting.

“We have a little high oil prices for a little while, but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, I believe, lower than even before,” Trump said.

The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the US jumped 11 cents overnight Tuesday to about $3.11 in the United States, according to the AAA.