What to know about Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khemenei
Iran’s government has named Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late supreme leader, as the country’s new ruler in what was described as a defiant move as the war involving Iran intensifies and questions grow about the future of the regime and its nuclear program.
Former CIA analyst and former chief of staff to President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, Fred Fleitz, said the Trump administration has been holding press conferences “to reassure the American people” about the purpose and progress of the U.S. military operation and to emphasize that it “is not going to be a never-ending war.”
Fleitz said President Trump has framed the U.S. commitment as short-term, adding, “Maybe this will be over next week. I don't think it's going to take more than a couple of weeks.”
Fleitz also addressed uncertainty about the status of Iran’s supreme leader, after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said he could not discuss it. “I have heard he was seriously injured in an airstrike. He may have lost a leg. I think he's conscious, but I frankly, I don't know more than that. I think he was seriously injured,” Fleitz said.
Fleitz described the naming of the new ruler as both defiance and an attempt by Iran’s ruling clerics to elevate the leader’s father as a martyr, even though, he said, the regime is officially opposed to hereditary rule. Fleitz said the move may resonate with a minority of the public but predicted it would not change broader sentiment. “That may work for 20% of the population, but 80% of the Iranian population hated his father,” he said.
Fleitz said Iran is under intense economic and military pressure and argued that while the U.S. president cannot choose Iran’s next leader, the U.S. has applied significant pressure on the country to select someone “who we can deal with,” and who would move Iran away from what he described as an aggressive posture and being a state sponsor of terror.
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