[Salon] Iran Picks Khamenei's Son as Supreme Leader; Oil Vaults Above $100

[Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>]

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-war-news-updates-2026

Iran Picks Khamenei's Son as Supreme Leader; Oil Vaults Above $100

Iranian state media said Mojtaba Khamenei would succeed his father, a choice President Trump had called 'unacceptable.' Oil prices surged into triple digits as the conflict rippled through markets.

Mojtaba Khamenei has been selected as the next supreme leader of Iran, state media said. The son of Ali Khamenei--Iran's former supreme leader who was killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Feb. 28-- had been called an "unacceptable" choice by President Trump.

Oil prices topped $100 a barrel Sunday, a sign of how the widening conflict is rippling through markets and the economy. U.S. stock futures slid.

The two sides traded hits on critical infrastructure over the weekend, with Israeli strikes on Iranian fuel-storage complexes lighting up the Tehran skyline. Bahrain said a desalination plant was damaged after an Iranian drone strike. That came after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the U.S. had attacked an Iranian desalination plant, which a U.S. spokesman denied.

In other developments:

A seventh service member has died in the conflict, the U.S. military said Sunday.

Iraq's oil production has fallen to less than one-third of its levels produced before the U.S. operation against Iran.

The U.S. has ordered its diplomats to leave Saudi Arabia, the first such order for a U.S. embassy in the region since the conflict began.

Police in Norway are investigating an explosion that damaged an entrance to the U.S. embassy in Oslo. No injuries were reported.

Trump said he wouldn’t be encouraging Kurdish militias to take on the Iranian government but that U.S. ground troops could be sent in if there were a “very good reason.”