According to reports by The New York Times and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israel allegedly attempted to recruit Iran’s former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to lead a post-Islamic Republic government in Iran. The reports claim that Israel’s efforts began before its military campaign in Gaza and continued even during the height of the Israel-Hamas war.
Ahmadinejad is now believed to be in the custody of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to the New York Times report, who cited Iranian officials. According to the report, Ahmadinejad in the previous years distanced himself from the regime, improved his English, and improvised his image. The effort to install him as the new Iranian leader gathered momentum after he was invited to speak at the same university in the Hungarian capital where Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had addressed two months earlier in 2025.
According to the NYT report, the head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, David Barnea, traveled to Hungary himself to meet him after he had been invited to speak at the Ludovika University. Haaretz confirmed Barnea’s involvement in the mission. After the meeting, the NYT reported that Mossad informed the CIA that it had been in contact with Ahmadinejad.
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Israeli officials even said to have paid Ahmadinejad for housing and travel with Mossad operatives meeting him several times, including on trips to Hungary at a time when the country was led by Israel’s closest ally, Viktor Orban.
Ahmadinejad appeared last week among mourners at the Khamenei’s funeral, his first public appearance in several months. NYT reported that the Israeli and U.S. officials believed him as a potential leader of a new post-theocratic regime in Iran, reported that he had been driven from his home after the strike by four Mossad agents, who then kept him at a safe house in Tehran.
However, Ahmadinejad is said to have stepped back from the plan. He left the safe house under mysterious circumstances and is believed to be under custody of IRGC intelligence wing. Israel was alerted about his deteriorating relations with the supreme leader and other regime elements after he left office in 2013. He was thrice rejected to run for the president office by the Guardian Council vetting body for candidates.
Ahmadinejad then began to moderate his previously hardline views and worked to improve his English, even giving a speech in Budapest in the language. He also underwent a makeover, and appearing to receive Botox treatment. He also criticized the brutal regime crackdowns and protest movements. His loyalties were questioned when he concluded that Iran cannot survive the international sanctions that had been imposed upon it due to its nuclear activities, which he believed had become a burden rather than an asset. Iranian officials were suspicious of the activities of Ahmadinejad after he slipped his security details twice during his trips to Budapest in 2025. He was confronted, Israeli Iranian officials had confronted him about his disappearances
