Report: US, Israel Planned Ahmadinejad as Iran's New Leader

Was this plan a serious regime-change strategy or an implausible leak based on unnamed officials?

14 hours ago·Updated 4 hours ago

Report: US, Israel Planned Ahmadinejad as Iran's New Leader

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Above: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran on June 2, 2024. Image credit: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

The Spin

Pro-Trump narrative

The claim that Trump was plotting to install Ahmadinejad as Iran’s next leader doesn’t withstand serious scrutiny. Backing a Holocaust-denying, anti-Western hardliner would make little strategic sense for Washington or Jerusalem, hand critics an immediate propaganda victory, and risk replacing one dangerous regime with another. The report relies on unnamed officials describing internal discussions, not evidence of any actual policy decision or operational plan.

Israel Hayom New York Post The Jerusalem Post

Anti-Trump narrative

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.

NDTV Al Jazeera The Daily Beast The Hill

Establishment-critical narrative

As Iran remains politically fragile and Washington debates next steps, a sensational leak suddenly claims Trump considered reinstalling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — a figure guaranteed to inflame both Iranian factions and American audiences. In Iran, it fuels paranoia and elite distrust; in the U.S., it paints Trump as reckless. Conveniently, the story rests on unnamed officials — a leak-driven formula the New York Times has faced scrutiny over before.