The New York Times reported Monday that Israel's Mossad spent years secretly cultivating former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a post-war succession asset. He served as president from 2005 to 2013, then Iran barred him from running again and he grew critical of the clerical establishment. Israel made contact in Guatemala in 2023, then arranged two Budapest meetings in 2024 and 2025 — one with then-Mossad Director David Barnea — and financed his housing, travel, and payments to his spokesman. On February 28, 2026, an Israeli airstrike hit his Tehran compound; Mossad operatives in a black Peugeot extracted him to a safe house. He grew disillusioned, left under unclear circumstances, and appeared briefly at Supreme Leader Khamenei's funeral on July 6, surrounded by guards. Four senior Iranian officials told the NYT he's now under house arrest by Iran's Revolutionary Guard intelligence arm.

1. The Operation Made Strategic Sense (Tamir Hayman, former head of Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate)

Israel's intelligence planners saw Ahmadinejad as a rational bet — sidelined, motivated by a genuine desire for power, and willing to normalize with Israel.

Ahmadinejad had real motivation, and Mossad knew it. His former adviser Abdolreza Davari told the NYT: "Ahmadinejad would not do this for money. He would do it for power. He wants to be at the helm of power." The clerical establishment had blocked him from running three times and frozen him out. Israel recruited someone with authentic grievances against the regime and a clear personal interest in a deal.

The cultivation was deliberate and multi-year. It ran from a 2023 Guatemala contact through a Budapest university conference in 2024 and a second Budapest meeting in June 2025. Barnea traveled personally to Hungary for the 2024 meeting. Israel financed housing, travel, and made payments to Ahmadinejad's spokesman. Hungarian university rector Gergely Deli, who arranged the 2024 conference cover, put it plainly: "You have two enemies, and if these enemies want to talk with each other, then it's best to do what you can to make them talk."

The plan was part of a broader sequence for regime change. Tamir Hayman, former head of Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate, confirmed on PBS's Firing Line that Ahmadinejad "was a part of that sequence" of special operations — which also involved arming Kurdish opposition forces from northern Iraq.

2. The Plan Was Always Unrealistic (U.S. officials who leaked; Hayman's own account of why it collapsed)

The sequence required pieces Israel couldn't control — and someone inside the U.S. coalition deliberately blew it to put Israel on notice.

The plan needed a Kurdish invasion that never came. Hayman said Israel needed the Kurdish operation from northern Iraq to launch the entire sequence, but Turkish President Erdoğan convinced President Trump it was a bad idea to back Kurdish independence. Without that piece, the Ahmadinejad succession element had nothing to plug into.

Ahmadinejad himself walked away. He grew "disturbed by the chaotic extraction" and left the safe house under unclear circumstances. The man Israel planned to install as Iran's next leader rejected the plan mid-operation.

Someone inside the U.S. deliberately exposed this operation. The Jerusalem Post's analysis argues the NYT leak came from Trump administration insiders — possibly Vice President JD Vance's allies, Pentagon officials, CIA members, or Turkish officials — to send Israel a message: "We don't trust you, so back off on Iran policy." The leak comes as Israel has been pressing Washington for harder stances on Iran and opposing U.S. F-35 sales to Turkey.

3. Iran's Security Services Say Ahmadinejad Betrayed the Republic (IRGC intelligence, four senior Iranian officials)

Iran is treating his arrest as vindication — and the IRGC now has evidence that the war was partly about installing a foreign-backed puppet in Tehran.

Iran arrested Ahmadinejad after discovering his Israeli contacts. Four senior Iranian officials confirmed to the NYT that the Revolutionary Guard's intelligence arm is holding him under house arrest. His spokesman Ali Akbar Javanfekr — who received Israeli payments — declined to comment.

Iran put Ahmadinejad on display at the funeral. He showed up at the procession surrounded by guards. The regime didn't hide him; it showed him managed in public — one week before this story broke.

This gives the regime a propaganda gift. It lets Iranian hardliners argue the U.S.-Israel war wasn't about Iran's nuclear program — it was a Mossad plan to put a foreign-backed president on the throne. Whether or not that framing is accurate, it's the one the IRGC is now positioned to push.

Where This Lands

Israel's intelligence planners bet on a sidelined politician with genuine motivation — and Tamir Hayman confirmed the plan on camera. The plan collapsed when Turkey killed the Kurdish invasion, Ahmadinejad himself rejected the extraction, and parts of the U.S. coalition turned the failure into a press leak. Iran has locked up its former president and reframed the war around the one fact that's undeniable: Israel picked Iran's next leader from a Budapest conference room, and it didn't work.

Sources