U.S. Media: Intelligence Agencies Assess Iran's New Leadership Has Greater Nuclear Ambition

According to Jin10, the New York Times reported, citing officials familiar with the assessment, that U.S. intelligence agencies believe Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba is more eager than his father, former Supreme Leader Khamenei, to develop nuclear weapons, and that Khamenei had vowed to abandon nuclear weapons development during his lifetime. U.S. intelligence agencies also believe Mojtaba and the hard-line government that took power afterward have ambitions to develop advanced nuclear weapons after the U.S. and Israel jointly killed several former Iranian leaders. If the U.S.-Israel war makes Tehran more likely, rather than less likely, to seek nuclear weapons, that would be another serious consequence of the assassination of Khamenei and the Trump administration's initial regime-change push.