Iran has chosen Mojtaba Khamenei, the hardline son of the assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as its new supreme leader, signaling Tehran won’t back down in a war now raging across the Middle East and causing turmoil in energy markets.
The choice was quickly criticized by US President Donald Trump, who is under mounting pressure as oil prices surge to the highest in almost four years.
Brent crude climbed about 9% to $101 as of 9.55 a.m. in London on Monday, while stocks tumbled and a global bond rout accelerated.
Trump called $100 oil a “small price to pay” and said the cost “will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over.”
The US and Israel continued to strike Iran, which is still attacking Israel and Arab Gulf states regularly with drones and missiles.
Tehran has said it can sustain the war at this level for at least six months.
Khamenei — whose father ruled Iran for almost 37 years and was killed when US-Israeli strikes began on Feb. 28 — won a “decisive vote” in Iran’s Assembly of Experts to become supreme leader.
The 56-year-old has deep ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, about the most powerful military and economic organization in Iran and which pledged full obedience to the new leader.
