The alleged U.S.-Israel plan to install Ahmadinejad as Iran's next leader is full of holes and doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Bringing back a Holocaust-denying, anti-Western hardliner would be like swapping one theocratic nightmare for another — it gains nobody anything. The report leans on unnamed officials describing deliberations, which is a far cry from actual operational policy.
The U.S. and Israel genuinely went into the Iran conflict with a regime-change blueprint that had Ahmadinejad at the center, and the evidence is hard to dismiss. An Israeli strike on Feb. 28 was designed to free him from house arrest, and an associate confirmed he knew the Americans saw him as capable of managing Iran's political and military situation. Trump misjudged Iran's resilience and gambled on a risky leadership swap that even his own aides found implausible.
© 2026 Improve the News Foundation.
All rights reserved.
Version 7.4.1