President Donald Trump said on March 6 that he would be open to Iran being ruled by another religious leader and said he wants Iran to undergo a process similar to what occurred in Venezuela in January.
When asked by CNN on Friday in a phone interview about whether he'd be open to another religious leader heading the country, Trump responded, “I may be, yeah.”
Iran has been ruled by a theocratic regime since 1979, encompassing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s reign since 1989. Khamenei was killed in U.S.–Israeli strikes on Feb. 28, and no replacement leader has been named.
“I mean, it depends on who the person is,” Trump also said. “I don’t mind religious leaders. I deal with a lot of religious leaders, and they are fantastic.”
Trump also said he would want Iran’s situation to play out in a manner similar to what happened in Venezuela after the U.S. military captured the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, and extradited him back to the United States to face federal drug charges. His vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, was named as the acting president after Maduro was removed.
“It’s going to work very easily. It’s going to work like it did in Venezuela. We have a wonderful leader there. She’s doing a fantastic job. And it’s going to work like in Venezuela,” the president said, referring to Rodríguez.
Trump also dismissed suggestions that Iran must have a democratically run government.
“No, I’m saying there has to be a leader that’s going to be fair and just. Do a great job. Treat the United States and Israel well, and treat [well] the other countries in the Middle East—they’re all our partners,” he told the outlet on Friday.
“And I became very friendly with all those countries. That’s why they’re all fighting for us. Before I got involved, we didn’t even speak to UAE and Saudi Arabia. They were all going to go to China.”
He said that in a short period of time, they became friends with him.
His comments to CNN build on previous ones a day earlier, when he said he wanted to be involved in picking the head of Iran’s government.
Iranian state television said on Friday that a leadership council had started discussing how to convene the country’s Assembly of Experts, which will select the new supreme leader.
In the airstrikes targeting Iran’s regime, dozens of leaders other than Khamenei were killed, and much of the country’s military and navy have been degraded. Israeli warplanes pounded Beirut and Tehran earlier on Friday as Iran launched another wave of retaliatory strikes against Israel and Gulf countries that host U.S. forces.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on social media that “some countries” had begun mediation efforts in the conflict, which was also carried by state media. He did not elaborate on those countries.
