Trump says US will ensure that Iran 'will not threaten America or its neighbors'

WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump said Thursday that Washington will "ensure" that whoever leads Iran after the American-Israeli war will not threaten the country's neighbors or the United States.

"The United States will ensure that whoever leads the country next, Iran will not threaten America or its neighbors, Israel, anybody," Trump said at the White House as he hosted the American soccer team Inter Miami.

"Long before this ever started, they were going after the entire Middle East. And then we came along, we blew up their party," he added.

Trump earlier demanded a personal say in selecting Iran’s next leader, comparing it to his role in selecting the leader of Venezuela after President Nicolas Maduro was captured by American forces in January and extradited to the US.

“I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy (Rodriguez) in Venezuela," he told Axios, dismissing Mojtaba Khamenei — the son of slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a reported frontrunner to succeed him — as "a lightweight."

He made clear that he would not accept a successor who continued the late supreme leader's policies, warning that this would drag the US back to war "in five years." "We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran," he said in a phone interview.

Iran has not yet announced a new supreme leader since Khamenei, alongside dozens of other senior Iranian officials, was killed after the launch of joint US-Israeli attacks on Saturday.

Though he holds no formal public office, Mojtaba Khamenei is widely regarded as the most influential of Khamenei's children and was sanctioned by the US Treasury in 2019. He has also been linked to the Basij force used to suppress protests after Iran's disputed 2009 election.

During Thursday's White House event, Trump continued to call on Iranian military, police and diplomatic officials to defect.

"You're going to have a chance, after all these years, to take back your country, accept immunity. We'll give you immunity, and we'll be giving you really the right side of history, because that's what it is. So you'll be perfectly safe with total immunity," he said.

"We also urge Iranian diplomats around the world to request asylum and to help us shape a new and better Iran with great potential. It's a country with great potential, is a much better future for Iran. It's now beginning. It's going to be, I think, a great future," he added.