US-Israeli war planning reportedly included a regime-change scenario involving former Iranian President Ahmadinejad as a transition figure.
Early US and Israeli war planning reportedly went beyond military objectives, including a regime-change scenario that envisioned former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a potential figure in a post-conflict political transition, The New York Times reported.
The plan called for a multi-phase operation to topple Iran’s leadership, starting with coordinated US-Israeli strikes aimed at killing senior political and military figures while crippling key military assets, including missile and naval capabilities.
Those attacks killed then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several senior officials, but failed to bring down the regime.
Israeli planners then reportedly expected internal instability to follow, combining influence operations, political pressure, and the mobilization of Kurdish forces to create the impression that the government was losing control.
The assumption was that factions inside Iran’s political establishment might break ranks and support alternative leadership.
In that context, Ahmadinejad reportedly emerged as a potentially useful insider who could “play a very important role.”
An armed Iranian policeman monitors an area while standing on an armored vehicle in front of a portrait of Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via AFPThe Failed Ahmadinejad Gambit
Despite his hardline political legacy, Ahmadinejad had increasingly fallen out with Iran’s ruling establishment in recent years, accusing senior officials of corruption, being barred from multiple presidential runs, and reportedly being kept under house arrest and close surveillance in Tehran.
US officials cited by The New York Times said an Israeli strike on the opening day of the war was intended to free him by targeting the Revolutionary Guard personnel controlling his movements near his residence.
Ahmadinejad was reportedly injured but survived. The operation, however, quickly went awry, derailing the broader plan as both the former Iranian president and US officials reportedly became disillusioned with the effort.
The New York Times said the former president has not been seen publicly since then and that US officials do not know his current whereabouts or medical condition.
An associate told the newspaper that US officials believed Ahmadinejad could help manage Iran’s political, social, and military landscape, drawing comparisons to a Venezuela-style transition model.
Such a scenario would have represented a striking turnaround for a figure long associated with anti-Western defiance, hostility toward Israel, and widespread domestic unpopularity.
During his time in office from 2005 to 2013, he strongly backed Iran’s nuclear program and became known internationally for inflammatory statements against Israel, including calls for it to be “wiped off the map,” as well as claims dismissing the Holocaust as a “myth.”
His presidency also saw a harsh crackdown on dissent after the disputed 2009 election, when mass Green Movement protests erupted over allegations of electoral fraud.
Hundreds of people demonstrate for a political change in Iran on June 16, 2009 in Frankfurt/Main, western Germany. Iran's bloody crackdown on post-election protesters raised an international outcry on June 16 over human rights abuses and demands that Tehran answer "serious questions" about the disputed poll. Photo: Thomas Lohnes/ddp images via AFP.