US PresidentDonald Trumphas said that Iran's next supreme leader would need approval from Washington, days afterAyatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in joint US and Israeli strikes on Tehran. In an interview on Sunday, Trump said that United States wanted to ensure the situation in Iran does not escalate again in the coming years. When asked whether he would consider approving a leader with links to Iran’s previous leadership, Trump said he would be open to the idea.

"He’s going to have to get approval from us," the president told ABC News. "If he doesn’t get approval from us he’s not going to last long. We want to make sure that we don’t have to go back every 10 years, when you don’t have a president like me that’s not going to do it."

He added, "I don’t want people to have to go back in five years and have to do the same thing again or worse let them have a nuclear weapon."

When asked if he would be willing to approve someone with ties to the old regime, Trump replied, "I would, in order to choose a good leader, I would, yeah, I would. There are numerous people that could qualify."

Trump also claimed that Iran was planning to take over the entire Middle East, and suggested he stopped them from doing so. "They are a paper tiger. They weren’t a paper tiger a week ago, I’ll tell you. And they were going to attack," he said. "Their plan was to attack the entire Middle East, to take over the entire Middle East."

He also did not rule out sending in special forces to seize Iran's enriched uranium: "Everything is on the table. Everything."

Also Read:Next Leader Also Target? Israel Warns It Will Hunt Down 'Every Successor' Of Khamenei

Reports have suggested that the ⁠clerical body that will choose Iran’s next supreme leader has reached a majority consensus. "Some obstacles" still needed to be resolved regarding the process, Iran’s Mehr news agency quoted Assembly of Experts member Ayatollah Mohammad-Mahdi Mirbagheri as saying. Under the Iranian constitution, it is the 88-member Assembly of Experts that is authorised to choose the country’s supreme leader.

In a video posted by Fars news agency on Telegram, Mirbagheri said “great efforts to determine the leadership” have been made and that “a decisive and unanimous opinion” has been agreed upon.

In a separate Fars interview, another member of the body, Hojjatoleslam Jafari, said he hopes “all Iranian people will be satisfied as soon as possible”.

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