Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei
•Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s ‘Ukraine v. Iran II’ in the right column is a response to our analysis, ‘Ukraine v. Iran’ in The Gray Area.
Same as the Old Ayatollah – Iran has named the late Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei’s second son, Mojtaba Khamenei, to be its new supreme leader, according to The New York Times, citing clerics’ statements in the country’s state media. Unlike his father, who was killed in the initial US-Israeli air attacks on Tehran a week ago Saturday Khamenei the younger’s tenure is not expected to last 37 years.
In fact, 37 days might be a stretch for 56-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei. He is not the regime change the US and Israel wanted.
Israel said Monday it was attacking Beirut and Tehran as Iran attacks Israel. US-Israeli strikes on oil facilities have been so intense that oil has been falling on Tehran like drops of rain, according to The Times of Israel.
Pricey rain … Oil prices topped $100 per barrel Sunday, per The Guardian, for the first time since 2022. National average in the US for a gallon of unleaded regular was up 66 cents over a week ago, according to the AAA.
Expensive gas is a small price to pay for “safety and peace,” President Trump said over the weekend, as he tried to reassure America the high prices will last “for weeks … not months,” The Independent (UK) reports.
But for how long? … Michael Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the US, says his country is counting on minorities in Iran to rise up, take over and prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Speaking to Margaret Brennan on CBS News Face the Nation, Leiter said Iran’s inability to keep its counterattacks inside its own borders is a sign its leaders are flailing.
“The fact that they are lashing out irrationally to any of their neighbors and firing these ballistic missiles into all of their neighbors, some 12 countries, into Europe for crying out loud, is indicative of the fact they’re having huge problems,” Leiter told Brennan. “We’re having success in these attacks on their command centers.”
But according to scoopage from The Wall Street Journal, neighbors in the region and even parts of Europe, for crying out loud, is exactly what Iran has been aiming at. Tehran’s leaders decided after last year’s 12-day war with Israel and the US they needed to change their strategy to a high-risk, aggressive plan to escalate conflicts across the region and allow its military to keep the battle going even if top commanders were killed.
In an address to Israel over the weekend Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that if Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps laid down its arms they would be spared US-Israeli wrath, but if not, they would have blood on their hands.
Back on Face the Nation Leiter indicated the war on Iran would last only until its enriched uranium for making a nuclear bomb was seized.
Won’t that require boots on the ground? Brennan asked.
No, Leiter maintained, because the enriched uranium will instead be seized by Iran’s suppressed minorities, who he identified as Kurds, Balochs and Azeris.
Brennan noted here that President Trump does not want to include the Kurds and make the situation more complex than it is already.
“Well, this isn’t Iraq or Afghanistan,” Leiter said. “Because in this case 80% of the people oppose the regime. They just need to express themselves. That’s what we’re explaining here. This is not a repeat of forever wars. … They’re beginning to move forward. It’s just going to take a little time.”
The 80%’s previous uprising resulted in thousands killed by Iran’s military.
The upshot … Unless Trump somehow manages to declare victory and leave Israel to finish this alone, the chances of US involvement ending in four or five weeks seem to be about as good as Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei’s tenure as supreme leader lasting 37 years. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa