Israel courted Iran’s former hardline president for post-regime role, reports claim | Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Israel attempted to recruit Iran’s deeply anti-Zionist former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to lead a new post-Islamic regime in Tehran, even going so far as to send its top spy to Budapest, according to media reports.

The remarkable quest to transform into a leader who denies the Holocaust and calls for the erasure of Israel began in 2022. The New York Times reported And Israeli newspaper HaaretzIt continued even after Israel launched a brutal operation in Gaza against Hamas, one of Iran’s key allies.

Ahmadinejad, who is currently believed to be in the custody of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), had begun to distance himself from the regime in previous years, improve his English and redefine his image, according to a New York Times report citing Iranian officials.

The effort to install him as a new Iranian leader gained momentum after Ahmadinejad was invited to speak at the same university in the Hungarian capital where Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had addressed 2025 just two months earlier.

By the way to the TimesRecruiting Ahmadinejad became such a priority that David Barnea, then-head of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, traveled to Hungary to meet him in person a year ago after being invited to speak at a climate change conference at Ludovika University.

Barnea’s involvement was also confirmed in Haaretz’s report; that report suggested the former Mossad director even skipped a security meeting with Netanyahu intended to discuss the war in Gaza at the height of the conflict with Hamas to focus on Ahmadinejad.

According to the Times report, after the meeting with Barnea, Mossad informed the CIA that it was in contact with Ahmadinejad; this relationship apparently gained momentum after the former president visited Guatemala in 2023.

Israeli officials are said to have even paid Ahmadinejad housing and travel expenses; Mossad agents met with him several times; this included trips to Hungary at a time when the country was led by former far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán, a close ally of Israel and Donald Trump.

Details of this effort emerged amid speculation about Ahmadinejad’s fate after the United States and Israel began military strikes against Iran on February 28, killing several senior Iranian figures, including religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

It was reported that Israeli missiles hit a security post near Ahmadinejad’s house in Tehran’s Narmak district on the same day, killing many guards. The former president then disappeared under unclear circumstances; initial Iranian media reports suggested he may have been killed.

But Ahmadinejad appeared among mourners at Khamenei’s funeral last week, his first public appearance in several months. The Times, which had previously reported that Israeli and US officials had identified him as a potential leader of a new post-theocratic regime, reported that he was chased from his home after the attack by four Mossad agents who later kept him in a safe house in Tehran.

But Ahmadinejad is said to be disturbed by the “frantic” rescue operation and disillusioned with the plan to bring him to power. He left the safe house under “mysterious circumstances” and is believed to have since been placed in the custody of the IRGC intelligence wing, the Times reported, citing Iranian officials.

His attempt to persuade Ahmadinejad is notable in part because of his key role in escalating tensions with Israel and the West over Iran’s nuclear program after his election as president in 2005.

During his presidency, Ahmadinejad sponsored a “scientific” conference that purported to examine the reality of the Holocaust, but in practice he demonstrated his then-vocally expressed belief that the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis during World War II was a “myth.”

However, Israeli officials are said to have been warned that relations with Khamenei and other regime elements had deteriorated after he left office in 2013; This situation was exacerbated when another attempt by him to run for president was rejected three times by the Guardian Council candidate review body.

Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, began to soften his previously rigid views and tried to improve his English, even giving a speech in that language in Budapest. He also changed his image by shaving off his once scruffy beard, ditching his trademark white jacket and appearing to be undergoing Botox treatments.

He has also criticized the regime’s brutal crackdown on protest movements, despite being at the center of one of the most famous such actions: the suppression of the “green movement” that emerged in response to his 2009 election victory, which opponents claimed was fraudulent.

According to Haaretz, Ahmadinejad’s loyalty came into question when he concluded that Iran could not survive the international sanctions regime imposed over its nuclear activities. Ahmadinejad concluded that these sanctions had become more of a burden than a benefit, according to Haaretz.

The newspaper reported disagreements within Israeli ranks over the regime change mission in Israel, titled Operation Puss in Boots, with former national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi dismissing the plans as “crazy fantasies” and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir ordering a halt three days before the launch. However, Netanyahu ignored the disagreements and ordered the process to continue.

Iranian officials had become suspicious of Ahmadinejad, who twice hijacked his security detail during a trip to Budapest in 2025, and confronted him about their disappearances, shortly before last summer’s 12-day war against the regime by Israel and the United States.

Alex Vatanka, head of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said Ahmadinejad’s growing discontent with the Iranian regime was known to insiders, including Khamenei, who was said to be upset with his former protégé’s decision to visit Guatemala, which has close diplomatic ties with Israel.

But he questioned the timing and motivation of the latest reports. “Why did the Mossad let Ahmadinejad out after saving him?” he said. “Would you invest this much? Maybe these are just efforts to create tension within the regime, which has positive aspects for the opponents of the regime.”