Irans Supreme Leader picks 3 stooges to replace him as fear of assassination surges: report

Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has chosen a secret list of three potential successors if he succumbs to the same fate as his growing list of valued lieutenants — another handful of whom were killed in overnight Israeli strikes Saturday.Khamenei, 86, the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader since 1989, believes that either Israel or the US will try to kill him and crafted the list while holed up in a bunker, ordering his nation’s Assembly of Experts — the clerical body responsible for appointing the supreme leader — to choose from his handpicked pool should his enemies be successful, officials told The New York Times.“If you need any more evidence that the ayatollah is shaking in his boots, look no further than him identifying his three stooges,” a source close to the White House told The Post.Khamenei’s 55-year-old son, Mojtaba, also a cleric and close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, was once rumored to be a front-runner, but was not included on the ayatollah’s succession list, as Israel continues to dominate the skies over Tehran.Who his three named candidates are is not clear — but the move is a deviation from Iran’s typical process for appointing a supreme leader.Normally, the clerics pick a leader from their own list of candidates, in a process that could take months.“The top priority is the preservation of the state,” said Vali Nasr, an Iran expert and professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University, told The Times about Khamenei’s decision.“It is all calculative and pragmatic.”The supreme leader has been relaying his wishes to his commanders through a single trusted aide — abandoning his use of electronic communications, according to the report.Spokespeople for Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.The Islamic Republic’s Ministry of Intelligence has also ordered all senior government officials and military commanders to remain below grou...