NYT: The US and Israel planned for ex-President Ahmadinejad to come to power in Iran. He was building a nuclear program

When the US and Israel launched a war against Iran, they planned for a man from within the Iranian system to take power. This was former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, known for his harsh anti-Israel and anti-American views.

This is reported by The New York Times, citing sources among American officials.

Who is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

During his presidency, from 2005 to 2013, he was known for his calls to “wipe Israel off the map” and his denial of the Holocaust. He was a staunch supporter of Iran’s nuclear program, a fierce critic of the United States, and known for his brutal crackdown on domestic dissent.

After Ahmadinejad left office, he gradually became a critic of the regime or clashed with Ayatollah Khamenei. Three times — in 2017, 2021, and 2024 — Ahmadinejad tried to run for president, but each time the religious authorities blocked his candidacy.

Ahmadinejad accused Iran’s top officials of corruption and mismanagement. Although he was never an open dissident, the regime began to treat him as a potentially destabilizing element, and he effectively fell under house arrest.

The US and Israeli plans

After the success of the operation in Venezuela, where interim successor to Nicolas Maduro Delcy Rodriguez showed a willingness to cooperate with the United States, the White House decided to apply the same strategy in Iran.

In recent years, Ahmadinejad has clashed with the regimeʼs leaders, accusing them of corruption, and rumors of his disloyalty have spread. He has been disqualified from numerous presidential elections, his aides have been arrested, and Ahmadinejadʼs movements have been increasingly restricted to his home in the Narmak district of eastern Tehran.

In the first minutes of the war, Israeli pilots killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and about 40 key Iranian military officials, including those the White House had identified as more inclined to negotiate a change of government.

Also at the time, Iranian media reported that Ahmadinejad had been killed in a strike on his home. However, it was later revealed that the strike did not cause significant damage to the house, but hit a guard post at the entrance to the street where Ahmadinejad lives.

In the following days, official Iranian news agencies reported that the former president had survived, but that his “guards” — actually members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who were keeping him under house arrest — had been killed. American sources said that the strike was intended to eliminate the guards who were monitoring Ahmadinejad in order to free him from house arrest.

An associate of Ahmadinejad confirmed to The New York Times that the former president viewed the coup as an attempt to free him. He added that the Americans considered Ahmadinejad a man who could lead Iran and had the ability to manage “the political, social and military situation in Iran”.

The same associate and sources among American officials said that the former president was wounded in an Israeli strike that was supposed to free him from house arrest. He survived the strike, but after a failed attempt, he became disillusioned with his plan to change the regime.

Many questions remain unanswered about how Israel and the United States planned to bring Ahmadinejad to power and how he was recruited.

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