Making clear that Donald Trump will accept nothing less than a total capitulation, White House press secretary Caroline Levitt said today that the US is well on its way to controlling Iranian airspace, adding that Washington expects achievable US targets to be completed in four to six weeks.
The “list” of successors and “no” to Khamenei’s son
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Levitt also said Washington was considering potential candidates to lead Iran, a day after President Trump said in interviews with Axios and Reuters that the US should be involved in choosing Iran’s new leader.
“I know there are a number of people that our intelligence agencies and the US government are looking at, but I’m not going to go into detail about that,” Levitt said.
In yesterday’s interview, Trump said he believed Iran’s next leader was unlikely to be the son of late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who appears among the front-runners to succeed his father, who was killed in a military strike at the start of the war.
What does “unconditional surrender” mean?
Earlier today, Trump said there would be no deal with Iran other than “unconditional surrender.”
“What the president means is that when he, as the head of the US Armed Forces, determines that Iran is no longer a threat to the US and the objectives of Operation Epic Rage have been fully achieved, then Iran will essentially be in a position of unconditional surrender, whether they say so or not,” Levitt said.
