Was Mossad Hoping to Make Mahmoud Ahmedinejad Iran’s Supreme Leader?

It sounds like pure fantasy, but then Mossad has pulled off amazing things in the past. Think only of Eli Cohen, for many years a friend and confidant of members of the highest political echelon in Syria, attending dinner parties with them, and with generals, too, in Damascus. Or of Nasser’s son-in-law Ashraf Marwan, who was a Mossad agent for years. Or of Sylvia Raphael, who posed as a Canadian photojournalist as part of the team hunting down those responsible for the murders in Munich of Israeli athletes. Or of Erika Chambers, who killed Ali Hassan Salameh in Beirut. Or of Wolfgang Lotz, who pretended to be a Nazi in Egypt during the 1960s, where he helped the Mossad discover the identities of German arms scientists working for Nasser, was shown by his Egyptian army friends where rocket launchers were located, and much more. He was so vocal with his feigned antisemitism that the Egyptians thought he must have been a former SS officer. Those are a few of Mossad’s agents. There are so many tales of derring-do and spycraft by Mossad agents that have still not been made public, and may never be.

Now we are told that Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who was president of Iran from 2005 to 2013, has become a willing tool of Mossad, that planned to make him the next supreme leader. This in itself is improbable, as the supreme leader has to be an ayatollah, the highest rank of Shi’ite cleric, and Ahmadinejad is not a cleric at all. Also, Ahmedinejad was known for being opposed to the “reformers” in Iranian politics and for his implacable hatred of the Jewish state. More on the story of Ahmedinejad’s possible link with the Mossad can be found here: “Fmr. Iranian president under house arrest after regime uncovers ties to Israel, Mossad – report,” by Amit Avitan and Tzvi Jasper, Jerusalem Post, July 13, 2026:

Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is under house arrest by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence arm after Iranian authorities uncovered a significant portion of his contacts with Israel, The New York Times reported on Monday, citing four senior Iranian officials.For years, Israel conducted a covert operation aimed at recruiting Ahmadinejad as an intelligence asset and, at a later stage, even planned to install him as Iran’s leader following the overthrow of the regime, according to an extensive New York Times investigation.According to the report, one of the operation’s more unusual stages took place in early 2024, when a senior Hungarian government official asked Gergely Deli, rector of the Ludovika University of Public Service in Budapest, to invite Ahmadinejad to a conference on climate change.Deli said he was told that the conference would in fact serve as cover for secret talks between Ahmadinejad and Israeli intelligence officials. Despite concerns about potential damage to his own reputation and that of the university, he agreed to invite Ahmadinejad because he believed that if “you have two enemies, and if these enemies want to talk with each other, then it’s best to do what you can to make them talk.”

Former American officials said that former Mossad head David Barnea personally traveled to Budapest in order to meet with Ahmadinejad.

In the years that followed, Israel made several secret payments to Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a spokesman for Ahmadinejad, and Israeli agents met with him several more times before the beginning of Operation Roaring Lion.

In February, the New York Times reported, Ahmadinejad’s home compound was hit by an Israeli airstrike targeting his bodyguards and armored car, after which he was picked up by Mossad operatives and taken to a secret safe house. He eventually left the safe house for unclear reasons, and was not seen again until making an appearance at former supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s funeral.

According to senior Iranian officials, he has been taken into custody by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence wing, and placed under house arrest….

It’s a great story, and it might even be true. Or it might have been a story that a political rival deliberately planted in order to get Ahmadinejad in trouble, or that Mossad planted to sow confusion and suspicion among the Iranian leaders, some of whom might be wondering that, if it isn’t Ahmadinejad whom Mossad contacted, then who is it?

Then there is another, more sinister possibility. It doesn’t appear to be accurate that Ahmadinejad has been placed under house arrest. Here he is at a memorial service for Khamenei a day after the New York Times story appeared:

⚡️ After false reports of his recruitment by the Mossad and his detention by the Revolutionary Guard… Ahmadinejad attended a memorial service for the martyred President of the Revolution pic.twitter.com/poqGzq0lQI

— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) July 14, 2026

Iranian dissident Ida Turan thinks that a controlled opposition figure writing for the Times, Farnaz Fassihi, fabricated the story in order to undermine Israel by giving the impression that its support of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi was weak, and that it would be happy with the continuation of Iran’s Islamic regime. And this, too, cannot be discounted as a possibility.

About Ahmadinejad and Mossad story:

I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that coordinated rumor “Israel wanted to topple the regime and install Ahmadinejad in its place”? which suddenly started circulating sourcing from outlets like The New York Times and Haaretz.

Then I… pic.twitter.com/fUVpA6i7yd

— Ida Turan 🇮🇷 ایده توران (@iranidaturan) July 14, 2026