According to The New York Times, Israel and the US allegedly considered Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as one of the figures capable of leading Iran after a strike on the regime’s top leadership. The version itself seems so strange that it is difficult to perceive without caution. But that is precisely why it is important: it shows not only a possible plan for a change of power in Tehran but also the depth of the split within the Iranian system.
This concerns the former president of Iran, who for years was a symbol of the harshest anti-Israeli and anti-American rhetoric. Ahmadinejad denied or questioned the Holocaust, supported the development of Iran’s nuclear program, spoke of the destruction of Israel, and remained one of the most recognizable faces of Tehran’s radical line.
And now, if the NYT publication is to be believed, he could have been considered as a person ‘from within the system’ capable of maintaining the situation after the elimination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and part of the regime’s high-ranking representatives.
What the NYT claims
According to the publication, after Israeli strikes on the Iranian leadership, US President Donald Trump publicly stated that the best option for Iran would be the rise to power of ‘someone from within’ the country.
Behind this wording, as the NYT writes, there could have been a specific scenario. The US and Israel allegedly entered the conflict with the understanding that in the event of the collapse of the current power structure, Iran would need a transitional figure — recognizable, embedded in the system, but already in conflict with its current top leadership.
According to the newspaper, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could have been such a figure.
On the first day of the war, Israel, according to NYT sources, struck Ahmadinejad’s house in Tehran. The goal of the strike was allegedly not to kill the former president but to destroy the IRGC forces that simultaneously guarded him and effectively kept him under house arrest.
Ahmadinejad survived but was injured. His accompanying members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed. After this, according to the publication’s sources, the former president became disillusioned with the idea of regime change and stopped participating in a possible power transition scenario.
Since then, he has not appeared publicly. His whereabouts and condition are reportedly unknown.
Why this sounds almost unbelievable
For the Israeli audience, this story is particularly sharp. Ahmadinejad is not a neutral technocrat, not a cautious reformer, and not a representative of the moderate wing. He is a person whose name in Israel is associated with threats, nuclear blackmail, Holocaust denial, and open hostility to the Jewish state.
That is why the version that Israel and the US could see him as a temporary manager for Iran seems almost like political absurdity.
But in such plots, the candidate is not the only important thing. The more important question is: if even Ahmadinejad was considered a possible option, how limited was the list of people capable of governing Iran after the regime’s collapse?
Ahmadinejad against the regime: how the former president became inconvenient for his own
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was born in 1956 in the Semnan province. Before big politics, he held administrative positions, and in 2003 he became the mayor of Tehran. In 2005, he won the presidential elections and remained the president of Iran for two terms — until 2013.
His rule was accompanied by a sharp increase in confrontation with the US and Israel. Under him, Tehran more actively promoted the nuclear program, intensified anti-Western rhetoric, and suppressed internal dissent.
The year 2009 was particularly important. Ahmadinejad’s re-election sparked mass protests of the ‘green movement,’ which the authorities harshly suppressed. For many Iranians, he remained not only a symbol of the regime’s external aggression but also the face of internal violence.
However, later Ahmadinejad’s relations with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei sharply deteriorated. The former president began to criticize corruption, speak out against the closed system of power, and tried to return to big politics. He was repeatedly not allowed to run in presidential elections, and his movements, according to media reports, were restricted.
Reuters noted in 2024 that a serious rift had developed between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei: the former president advocated limiting the power of the supreme leader and called for freer elections.
Contacts, trips, and suspicions
The NYT also writes that people from Ahmadinejad’s entourage were accused of too close ties with the West and even possible contacts with Israel. The former president himself in recent years traveled outside Iran, which only fueled rumors about his role.
In 2023, he visited Guatemala, and in 2024 and 2025 — Hungary. Both countries have close relations with Israel, and this fact is presented in the Western press as an additional element of the overall picture.
In itself, it proves nothing. But in Middle Eastern politics, such details rarely remain without interpretations.
For Tehran, even a hint of informal contacts with the West or Israel can become grounds for accusations of treason. For Washington and Jerusalem, on the contrary, such rifts within the system may look like a chance to find a person who knows the apparatus from the inside and is capable of temporarily holding management.
What this story tells Israel
Even if the NYT version turns out to be an exaggeration, a political leak, or part of an information game, it shows the main thing: scenarios of ‘Iran after the ayatollahs’ have long been discussed not as a theory but as a practical task.
For Israel, this is a question not only of security but also of the future of the entire region. The Iranian regime has been building a network of influence for decades through Hezbollah, the Houthis, Shiite militias, Palestinian groups, and military programs aimed against Israel. Therefore, any crack within Tehran automatically becomes a national security issue.
NANews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency considers such publications not as a ready answer but as a signal: behind the facade of Iranian rhetoric, there may be a fierce struggle between different groups within the system itself.
Why betting on an ‘insider’ is risky
The idea of betting on a figure from the old system always looks tempting. Such a person knows the elites, the power apparatus, the bureaucracy, the connections between the army, the IRGC, the intelligence services, and religious structures.
But this is also the main risk.
Ahmadinejad is not a symbol of democratic transition. He is not associated with reconciliation, freedom, or a new Iran. For many, he remains part of the same regime, only in conflict with another part of it.
That is why a possible bet on him shows not the strength of the plan but rather a lack of real options. If the choice is between chaos, a military junta, ayatollahs, and a former radical president, it speaks to the complexity of the Iranian knot.
A plan that crashed against reality
According to the data presented in the publication, the alleged scenario could have included several stages: airstrikes, the elimination of the supreme leader, destabilization of the regime, internal uprisings, the emergence of an alternative center of power, and a managed transition.
But, judging by the description, only the military part worked.
The political part turned out to be much more complicated. Ahmadinejad, if NYT sources are to be believed, did not become the face of the transition after the strike. The internal collapse did not automatically turn into new power. And the Iranian system itself, even losing part of its top leadership, does not necessarily have to collapse according to a pre-written scenario.
This is an important lesson for Israel and the US. Strikes can destroy infrastructure, eliminate commanders, and nullify part of the enemy’s strategic capabilities. But creating a new political reality is much harder than destroying the old one.
The final paradox of this story is that a man who built his career for years on hatred of Israel and the US could end up on the list of possible transitional figures for Iran. This does not make him moderate. It only shows how convoluted the struggle within the Iranian regime has become.
If the NYT publication is accurate, we are witnessing one of the strangest episodes of Middle Eastern politics in recent years.
If not, the very fact of such a version appearing in a major Western media is still important. It shows that the topic of Iran’s future has already gone beyond diplomatic statements. The question is no longer just about what will happen with the nuclear program. The question is who will be able to govern the country if the previous system begins to crumble.