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President Trump called this weekend for “new leadership” in Iran just hours after a social media tirade by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, blaming Mr. Trump personally for violent protests across Tehran and the deaths of thousands of Iranians.
The two leaders engaged in the rhetorical back-and-forth at an especially tense moment for the U.S. and Iran, amid speculation that Mr. Trump could order direct military action against the Islamic republic and potentially against the ayatollah himself. The recent U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro shows that the Trump administration is willing to use military force to remove a head of state or other key foreign leader.
Tehran has been rocked by widespread protests over the past several weeks and has responded with a harsh crackdown against its citizens, leading to thousands of deaths. The crackdown seems to have put down the protests, at least temporarily, with no major demonstrations reported across Iran over the weekend.
The regime’s handling of the protests has been bloody. Some estimates put the death toll at well over 10,000, though an exact number is difficult to pin down amid an internet and information blackout imposed across much of the country. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said Sunday that it had verified at least 3,766 deaths.
Throughout the demonstrations, Iran has blamed figures linked to the U.S. and Israel for stoking unrest. Ayatollah Khamenei said Mr. Trump bears personal responsibility.
“We find the U.S. president guilty due to the casualties, damages and slander he inflicted upon the Iranian nation,” he said in a series of posts on X. “In the numerous seditions in Iran in the past, it was usually the press & second-tier U.S. or European politicians who were interfering. The unique feature of this sedition was that the U.S. president himself interfered in this sedition & encouraged the seditionists.”
“The U.S. president sent a message to the seditionists saying he would support them and provide military support. In other words, the U.S. president himself was involved in the sedition. These are criminal acts,” the ayatollah said.
Mr. Trump spoke to Politico shortly after the Iranian leader posted his messages.
“It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran,” Mr. Trump told the outlet.
“What he is guilty of, as the leader of a country, is the complete destruction of the country and the use of violence at levels never seen before,” Mr. Trump said of the ayatollah. “In order to keep the country functioning — even though that function is a very low level — the leadership should focus on running his country properly, like I do with the United States, and not killing people by the thousands in order to keep control.”
“Leadership is about respect, not fear and death,” the president said.
For Mr. Trump, it was the latest in a long line of direct confrontations with Iran. During his first term, the president ordered a military strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The two nations nearly went to war in the days after that strike.
In June, Mr. Trump ordered airstrikes against three key Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran responded by attacking Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, though the attack was repelled by U.S. defenses and no casualties were reported.
Al Udeid is widely seen as one of the most likely targets in any Iranian retaliation against U.S. forces in the Middle East. The regime has vowed such retaliation if Mr. Trump orders new strikes on Iran.
Mr. Trump encouraged Iranian demonstrators throughout the most recent protests. He vowed that “help is on the way” and publicly spoke about potential U.S. military strikes against Iran.
The prospect of such strikes seemed to decline after Iran chose not to publicly execute hundreds of protesters, as it had threatened to do.
Major questions remain about the future of a post-Khamenei Iran, but Mr. Trump’s calls for new leadership will likely reverberate in Tehran and across the broader Middle East.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Sunday that any U.S. action targeting the ayatollah “is tantamount to all-out war against the Iranian nation.”
It’s unclear whether anything short of that would be effective. The ayatollah is the ultimate decision-maker in Iran. Even intense U.S. strikes targeting Iran’s military and political leadership could fail to bring about lasting change if the ayatollah is left in power.
“Would it make a difference? I mean, there’s no question that the United States could take out their navy, could bomb their air bases, could create a lot of havoc for the military, but the repression, of course, is being done by guys with AK-47s on the street, jumping off of motorcycles,” Rep. James Himes of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told “Fox News Sunday.”
“It’s not clear to me that the United States taking out their navy or their air bases is necessarily going to result in success for this uprising against the regime,” Mr. Himes said.
Although no major public protests were reported over the weekend, some Iranians reportedly chanted anti-Khamenei slogans from the windows of their homes Saturday night. Those chants were heard in Tehran, Shiraz and Isfahan, witnesses said.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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