Trump Says He’ll Pick Iran’s Next Leader—Just Like He Did in Venezuela

President Trump has declared that he wants to essentially handpick Iran’s next leader, an extremely bleak yet unsurprising development in this regime-change war.

“They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodríguez] in Venezuela,” Trump told Axios in an eight-minute phone interview Thursday, emphasizing that Mojtaba Khamenei, the most likely successor to his recently assassinated father, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was “unacceptable.”

“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump said, also mentioning that the younger Khamenei coming to power would bring the U.S. back to war on Iran “in five years.”

This confirms previous reporting that the Trump administration thinks toppling a nearly 50-year regime that seems prepared for a dragged-out war will be some simple plug-and-play situation, and that the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and subsequent deals with his successors in Venezuela can be a direct template for Iran, even though it was a wildly different event.

Trump has previously confirmed that even if Iran did have someone like Delcy Rodríguez in Venezuela, they were long dead.

“The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,” he said on Sunday. “It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.” He said the same on Tuesday, as well.

This claim displays the confidence the Trump administration has that the Iranian government will simply capitulate.

This story has been updated.