“Trump’s plan failed,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote, saying the nomination showed “the Iranian regime has shown that it is not thinking of capitulation.”
The paper said it remained hard after 10 days of war to form a realistic view of the military situation.
“The triumphalist reports from Washington do not fit with the fact that the Iranians are still shelling their neighbors and Israel,” it wrote, while adding that Tehran’s confident statements also did not match the limited damage caused by Iranian missiles.
FAZ said the transfer of power to a figure clearly rejected by Trump showed that a “Venezuelan scenario” had so far failed in Iran.
It added that the strategic position of both sides was worsening: Iran was losing striking power as more of its weapons were destroyed, while the US-Israeli alliance could not sufficiently control events without ground forces.
“The outcome of this confrontation is open,” the paper concluded.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung wrote that Mojtaba Khamenei’s nomination was effectively a coup, not an election.
“The Islamic Republic has become a military dictatorship with Khamenei as a figure symbolizing continuity,” the newspaper said, adding that the rulers in Tehran were generals and former generals turned politicians who had no intention of dialoguing either with Trump or with their own people.
Der Spiegel said “hardliners are setting the direction in Iran” and that the nomination of Khamenei’s son amounted to an effective takeover by the Revolutionary Guards, who were not interested in talks with Trump.
The magazine said Mojtaba Khamenei was closely tied to the Guards and had fought in their ranks against Iraq at age 17.
Reformers, including President Masoud Pezeshkian, now appeared definitively defeated, it added, with the new leader and his inner circle “betting on confrontation.”
(jh)
Source: PAP