Trump demands to choose next Iranian supreme leader

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he must be directly involved in choosing the new ruler of Iran, pointing to Venezuela as a model for how he wants to control the country of 92 million people. 

Trump dismissed the idea of Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the slain supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, taking over in Iran.

"Khamenei's son is unacceptable to me. ​We want someone that will ​bring harmony and peace to Iran," ⁠Axios quoted Trump as saying ​in an interview.

"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 said.

Trump's reference to Venezuela offers the first tangible insight into how the US leader views Iran beyond its war on the Islamic Republic. 

The Trump administration has offered mixed explanations for why it attacked Iran. It has provided even less insight into its stated objectives besides the destruction of Iran's military, state institutions and nuclear programme. 

The Venezuela model

In January, the US launched a nighttime attack on Venezuela and abducted President Nicolas Maduro.

Vice President Delcy Rodriguez became the leader of the South American country. Rodriguez had played a role in hosting talks with US officials and American energy companies months before Maduro's abduction.

Rodriguez was viewed as someone who could work with the US to unlock Venezuela's mineral and oil wealth. 

In Venezuela, Trump left the machinations of Maduro's security state in place, including the military and intelligence agencies. But he has staked a claim to the country's oil, directly selling it on the market. 

“Delcy Rodríguez, who is the President of Venezuela, is doing a great job, and working with US Representatives very well,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Wednesday. “The Oil is beginning to flow, and the professionalism and dedication between both Countries is a very nice thing to see!”

Analysts have speculated that Trump would like to reach a similar understanding in Iran, but have said that it's impossible to draw comparisons between Venezuela and the sprawling West Asian country, where the Islamic Republic has been in place since the 1979 overthrow of the US-backed shah. 

Who is Mojtaba Khamenei?

Mojtaba, 56, is widely seen as a hardliner within Iran.

The opposition channel, Iran International, has reported that he is being pushed for the top job by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Experts say that if he is tapped to become the supreme leader, it would signal their consolidation of power in the wake of the US war. 

Mojtaba was born in the city of Mashhad in 1969 as the second son of the late supreme leader and Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, who also died following injuries sustained last week.

Mojtaba became an ally of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and was accused of helping to orchestrate the claimed rigging of the 2009 election and the crackdown on protesters that followed.

Even at the time, he was highly controversial in Iran's political establishment, with one politician telling The Guardian in 2009 that his alleged secretive influence was frustrating senior figures. 

Until a new supreme leader is chosen, Iran is officially being run by a three-person panel that includes the moderate president, Masoud Pezeshkian; the head of Iran's judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, who is considered a hard-liner; and senior cleric, Alireza Arafi.

It's not clear if that panel is overseeing the day-to-day conduct of Iran's military. Many experts speculate that regional commanders have since assumed oversight of missile and drone attacks, with Iran's command and control system decapitated by US and Israeli air strikes.