Iran names Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father as supreme leader and Saudi sharpens warning

March 9, 2026

(File Photo: Source for Photo: Mojtaba, son of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, center, attends the annual Quads, or Jerusalem Day rally in Tehran, Iran, on May 31st, 2019. (AP Photo/Vahid Selemi, File)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Iran’s late supreme leader, has been named as the Islamic Republic’s next ruler, authorities announced Monday, as Tehran widened its attacks across the Mideast to strike oil and water facilities crucial to its desert sheikdoms.

With Iran’s theocracy under assault by the U.S. and Israel for more than a week, the country’s Assembly of Experts chose as the next supreme leader a secretive, 56-year-old cleric who maintains close ties to the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. The Guard has been firing missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf Arab states since the younger Khamenei’s father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed Feb. 28 during the war’s opening salvo.

The war has shaken global energy markets, pushing oil prices above $100 a barrel and leading to tighter supplies of natural gas after Qatar turned off its production.

The younger Khamenei, who had not been seen or heard from publicly since the war started, had long been considered a contender for the post. That was even before the Israeli strike killed his father, and despite never being elected or appointed to a government position.

There appeared to be some dissension over his selection. Political figures within Iran criticized the idea of handing over the supreme leader’s title based on heredity and thereby creating a clerical version of the rule of the shah, who was toppled during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But top clerics in the Assembly of Experts likely wanted Khamenei to prosecute the war.

Khamenei, who is believed to hold views that are even more hard-line than his late father, now will be in charge of Iran’s armed forces and any decision regarding Tehran’s nuclear program.

While the country’s key nuclear sites are in tatters after the United States bombed them during the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June, there’s still highly enriched uranium in Iran that’s a technical step away from weapons-grade levels. Khamenei could choose to do what his father never did — pursue the bomb.

Israel has already described him as a potential target, while U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the idea of Khamenei taking power.

“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me,” Trump has said. “We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump told ABC News on Sunday he wants a say in who comes to power once the war is over; a new leader “is not going to last long” without his approval.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard issued a statement expressing support, as did the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Top Iranian security official Ali Larijani, speaking to Iranian state television, praised the Assembly of Experts for “courageously” convening even as airstrikes continued in Tehran. He said the younger Khamenei had been trained by his father and “can handle this situation.”

Regional anger grows and oil rises above $100 a barrel

Oil depots in Tehran smoldered following overnight Israeli strikes.

In a sign of rising regional anger, the Arab League chief lashed out at Iran for its “reckless policy” of attacking neighbors, including ones that host U.S. forces.

The U.S. military said a service member died of injuries from an Iranian attack on troops in Saudi Arabia on March 1. Seven U.S. soldiers have now been killed.

Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry said Monday it intercepted a drone attacking the country’s massive Shaybah oil field. The kingdom followed the alleged drone attack with sharper warnings to Iran that it would be the “biggest loser” if it continued to attack Arab states.

It dismissed comments by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday that Iran had halted its attacks on Gulf Arab states.

“The kingdom affirms that the Iranian side has not implemented this statement in practice, neither during the Iranian president’s speech nor afterward,” Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “Iran has continued its aggression based on flimsy pretexts devoid of any factual basis.”

It added the Iranian attacks mean “further escalation which will have grave impact on the relations, currently and in the future.”

Two U.S. officials say the State Department will order nonessential personnel and families of all staff to leave Saudi Arabia as Iran escalates its attacks. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity pending a formal announcement. Eight other U.S. diplomatic missions have ordered all but key staff to leave: Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the consulate in Karachi, Pakistan.

The war has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, at least 397 in Lebanon and at least 11 in Israel, according to officials. Israel reported its first soldier deaths Sunday, saying two were killed in southern Lebanon, where its military is fighting Hezbollah.

Desalination and oil facilities attacked

Bahrain accused Iran of indiscriminately attacking civilian targets and damaging one of its desalination plants, though its electricity and water authority said supplies remained online.

Desalination plants supply water to millions of residents in the region and thousands of stranded travelers, raising new fears of catastrophic risks in parched desert nations.

The strike came after Iran claimed a U.S. airstrike damaged a desalination plant there. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the strike on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz had cut into the water supply to 30 villages.

He warned that in doing so “the U.S. set this precedent, not Iran.”

In response, U.S. Central Command spokesperson Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins said that “U.S. forces do not target civilians – period.”

The Iranian Red Crescent Society warned Tehran residents to take precautions against toxic air pollution and the risk of acid rain from the oil depot attack. It also said about 10,000 civilian structures across the country had been damaged, including homes, schools and almost three dozen health facilities.

Lebanon says a half-million people displaced

Lebanon said over a half-million people have been displaced in the week of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

The actual number is likely higher. Lebanon’s count of 517,000 refers to those who registered on the government’s online portal. Israel over the past week has called on residents in dozens of villages across southern Lebanon and the entirety of Beirut’s southern suburbs to evacuate.

In Beirut, sheltering families crammed into schools, slept in cars or in open areas near the Mediterranean Sea, where some burned firewood to keep warm.

Israel’s renewed offensive began last week after Hezbollah launched rockets toward northern Israel during the Iran war’s opening days.

“Country” Joe McDonald, ’60s rock star, dies at 84

March 9, 2026

(File Photo: Source for Photo: FILE – Country singer Joe McDonald plays during the Heros of Woodstock concert at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in Bethel, N.Y., Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009, marking the 40th anniversary of the original 1969 Woodstock concert. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — “Country” Joe McDonald, a hippie rock star of the 1960s whose “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” was a four-lettered rebuke to the Vietnam War that became an anthem for protesters and a highlight of the Woodstock music festival, died Sunday. He was 84.

McDonald, who performed with his band, Country Joe and the Fish, died in Berkeley, California. His death from complications of Parkinson’s disease was reported by Kathy McDonald, his wife of 43 years, in a statement issued by his publicist.

McDonald was a longtime presence in the Bay Area music scene, where peers included the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane and his onetime girlfriend, Janis Joplin. He wrote or co-wrote hundreds of songs, from psychedelic jams to soul-influenced rockers, and released dozens of albums. But he was known best for a talking blues he completed in less than an hour in 1965 — the year President Lyndon Johnson began sending ground forces to Vietnam — and recorded in the Berkeley home of Arhoolie Records founder Chris Strachwitz.

In the deadpan style of McDonald’s hero, Woody Guthrie, “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” was a mock celebration of war and early, senseless death, with a chorus concertgoers and others would learn by heart:

And its 1, 2, 3 what are we fighting for? Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn, Next stop is Vietnam, And its 5, 6, 7 open up the pearly gates, Well there ain’t no time to wonder why, WHOOPEE we’re all gonna die

At the time he wrote “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag,” McDonald was co-leader of the newly formed Country Joe and the Fish and he added a special “F-I-S-H” chant before the song: “Give me an F, give me an I, give me an S, give me an H.” By the time his group appeared at Woodstock in 1969, the Fish were on the verge of breaking up, the chant was a different four-letter word beginning in “F” and McDonald was performing before hundreds of thousands. Many would stand and sing along, a moment captured in the Woodstock documentary released the following year. (For the film, the song’s lyrics appeared as subtitles, a bouncing ball on top).

“Some people alluded to peace and stuff (at Woodstock), but I was talking about Vietnam,” McDonald told The Associated Press in 2019. He called the opening chant “an expression of our anger and frustration over the Vietnam War, which was killing us, literally killing us.”

The song helped make him famous, but brought legal and professional consequences. In 1968, Ed Sullivan canceled a planned appearance by Country Joe and the Fish on his variety show when he learned of the new opening cheer. Soon after Woodstock, McDonald was arrested and fined for using the cheer at a show in Worcester, Massachusetts, an ordeal which helped hasten the band’s demise.

McDonald even performed the song in court. His friendships with such political radicals as Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin led to his being called in as a witness in the “Chicago Eight (or Seven)” trial against organizers of anti-war protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. On the stand, he explained how he had met with Hoffman and others and told them about “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag.” When he began performing it, the judge interrupted and told him “No singing is permitted in the courtroom.”

McDonald recited the words instead.

In 2001, the daughter of the late jazz musician Edward “Kid” Ory sued McDonald, alleging that his song’s melody closely resembled Ory’s 1920s jazz instrumental “Muskrat Blues.” A U.S. district judge in California ruled in McDonald’s favor, citing in part the “unreasonable” delay between the song’s release and the suit being filed.

A man of the ’60s

McDonald continued touring and recording for decades after Woodstock, but remained defined by the late 1960s, a time period he openly longed for in the late 1970s rocker “Bring Back the Sixties, Man.” His albums included “Country,” “Carry On,” “Time Flies By” and “50,” and he would continue writing protest songs, notably the 1975 release “Save the Whales.”

Although defined by his anti-war activism, McDonald would acknowledge conflicted feelings about Vietnam. He had served in the Navy, in Japan, in the late 1950s, and found himself identifying with both the protesters and those serving overseas. In the 1990s, he helped organize the construction of a Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Berkeley, formally unveiled in 1995.

“Many remembered the ugly confrontations that had happened during the war years in the city,” McDonald later wrote of the ceremony. “Yet the atmosphere proved to be one of reconciliation, not confrontation.”

McDonald was married four times, most recently to Kathy McDonald, and had five children and four grandchildren. He was involved off and on with Joplin over the second half of the 1960s, two young hippies whose careers and temperaments drove them apart. When McDonald told her he thought they should break up, she asked him to write a song, which became the ballad “Janis”:

Even though I know that you and I

Could never find the kind of love we wanted

Together, alone, I find myself

Missing you and I

You and I

___

Raised on politics, and music

Country Joe McDonald did not come from the “country.” He was born on Jan. 1, 1942 in Washington, D.C., and grew up in El Monte, California. He was the son of onetime Communists who named him for Josef Stalin and otherwise encouraged him to love music and identify with the working class. He was still in his teens when he began writing songs, playing trombone well enough to lead his high school marching band and teaching himself folk, country and blues songs on guitar.

After returning from the Navy, in the early 1960s, he attended Los Angeles State College, but soon moved to Berkeley and became immersed in folk music and political activism. He founded an underground magazine, Rag Baby, for which “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” was written to help promote, and helped start such local groups as the Instant Action Jug Band and the Berkeley String Quartet.

In 1965, he formed Country Joe and the Fish with fellow singer-guitarist Barry “The Fish” Melton, later adding Bruce Barthol on bass, organ player David Bennett Cohen and Gary “Chicken” Hirsh on drums. The name was suggested by magazine publisher Eugene “ED” Denson, who cited a quote from Mao Zedong that revolutionaries are “the fish who swim in the sea of the people.” McDonald was dubbed “Country Joe” because Denson had heard that Stalin was known as “Country Joe” during World War II.

Like the Jefferson Airplane, the Byrds and other bands, the Fish evolved from folk to folk-rock to acid rock. “Electric Music for the Mind and Body,” their debut album, was released in May 1967 and featured a minor hit, “Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine,” along with numerous long jams. A month after the album came out, they appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival, the first major rock gathering and a highlight of the so-called Summer of Love.

“I think the ‘Summer of Love’ thing was manufactured by the media or something, because I don’t remember us thinking, ‘Wow, this is the “Summer of Love,′ ” he told aquariandrunkard.com in 2018. “(But) I was just thrilled to be a part of this new counterculture and new tribe because I had never really felt comfortable in the other tribes that I was a part of growing up and in the Navy. My parents were actually Jewish Communists. I never felt a part of it, but I was really thrilled and happy to be a hippie.”

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