The US president who likes to keep the world guessing about his endgame in Iran is now telling the world what he wants.
In a war widely described as his "war of choice", Donald Trump says he also wants to choose who will rule Iran now that its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and dozens of others clerics and commanders, have been assassinated.
That seems unthinkable for a clerical regime rooted in deep distrust of America - among its most ideological elements there is burning hostility towards the country they labelled long ago as the "great Satan".
Whether Iran's embattled leadership would be mindful of choosing a top cleric willing to work in a different way with Washington is not clear.
There has long been division between factions known as reformers and pragmatists, and the hardliners who call themselves Principlists in their defence of their revolution.
