7th U.S. service member dies in war with Iran, new supreme leader named

• President Trump, who has called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” indicated on Saturday he has no timetable for the war, telling reporters, “I never project that, whatever it takes.”
• Mr. Trump told CBS News that the U.S. has been successful in diminishing the Iranian military and regime, and will continue to expand its targets inside Iran.
• Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian threatened to step up attacks on American targets throughout the Middle East: “When we are attacked, we have no choice but to respond.”
• Iranian clerics said a consensus on a new supreme leader has been reached, but a name has not been announced.
• Another U.S. service member has died in the war with Iran, bringing the death toll to seven.

Iranian state TV announced Sunday that Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the country’s late supreme leader, has been named his successor.

The younger Khamenei had long been considered a contender, even before an Israeli strike killed his father at the start of the war, and despite never being elected or appointed to a government position.

Iran’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard answers to the supreme leader, and now Khamenei will have the central say in war strategy. The announcement came on the ninth day of the war and after signs of a rift among Iranian officials as the country awaited a decision by the 88-seat Assembly of Experts, a group of clerics that selects Iran’s supreme leader.

A U.S. service member has died from injuries received during Iran’s initial retaliatory attacks, the U.S. Central Command said Sunday.

The service member was seriously wounded during an attack in Saudi Arabia on Mar. 1, CENTCOM said. The identity of the service member will be released following the notification of the next of kin.

This is the seventh American service member to be killed in the Middle East since the war in Iran started on Feb. 28.

Mr. Trump said Iran’s next supreme leader won’t last long without first receiving approval from the United States, despite Iranian officials insisting that the U.S. does not and should not have any input on the country’s election process.

“He’s going to have to get approval from us,” Mr. Trump told ABC News. “If he doesn’t get approval from us, he’s not going to last long. We want to make sure that we don’t have to go back every 10 years, when you don’t have a president like me that’s not going to do it.”

While Iran is already preparing to name the new supreme leader, Mr. Trump said he would approve of a candidate linked to the previous regime, “in order to choose a good leader.”

“There are numerous people that could qualify,” he added.

Israel’s military said it launched a new wave of “extensive” airstrikes on Tehran, against infrastructure and other areas in Iran.

It was the second wave of strikes announced by the Israeli military on Sunday.