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Report: US, Israel planned to install Ahmadinejad as Iran's leader
The United States and Israel worked together to bring a surprising figure to power in Iran: former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, known for his extreme positions against Israel and the US. The New York Times revealed the details in an exclusive report. According to the report, the daring plan was drawn up by Israel in coordination with the US after the elimination of Iran's supreme leader, and Ahmadinejad himself was involved in consultations about it. But the plan went awry: An Israeli Air Force strike intended to eliminate the guards monitoring him and free him from house arrest also hit Ahmadinejad himself. His presidency marked the Beginning of a new era for the Iranian regime. Ahmadinejad.Photo: AP American officials who were briefed on the details of the plan told The New York Times that in the early days of the war, Israel and the US developed joint plans to identify a pragmatic figure who could seize power in Tehran. They said intelligence indicated that figures inside the Iranian regime were prepared to cooperate with the US, even if they could not be described as "moderates." A few days after the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Donald Trump publicly mused that it would be better if "someone from within" took over Iran, a remark that, in light of this report, takes on a completely different meaning.
US and Israel planned to install Ahmadinejad as Iranian leader, NYT ...
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was being lined up by the US and Israel in Iran similarly to Rodriguez after Maduro in Venezuela.The United States and Israel went into war on Iran intending to replace the regime’s leadership with hardline former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, The New York Times reported.Quoting US officials who were briefed on the “audacious plan”, the newspaper said things “quickly went awry”, and Ahmadinejad’s “current whereabouts and condition are unknown”.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Venezuela’s interim president’s oil law reform to break with Chavez modellist 2 of 3UN cuts global growth forecast, blaming Middle East crisislist 3 of 3Iran war day 82: Tehran warns of ‘new fronts’ as Trump sets deadlineend of listAfter the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, US President Donald Trump mused that it would be best if “someone from within” Iran took over the country, the Times reported.“To say that Mr Ahmadinejad was an unusual choice would be a vast understatement,” the newspaper said.“While he had increasingly clashed with the regime’s leaders and had been placed under close watch by the Iranian authorities, he was known during his term as president, from 2005 to 2013, for his calls to ‘wipe Israel off the map’. He was a strong supporter of Iran’s nuclear program, a fierce critic of the United States and known for violently cracking down on internal dissent.”The newspaper noted, however, that in a 2019 interview, Ahmadinejad praised President Trump and argued for a rapprochement between Iran and the US.“Mr Trump is a man of action,” Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying. “He is a businessman and therefore he is capable of calculating cost-benefits and making a decision. We say to him, let’s calculate the long-term cost-benefit of our two nations and not be shortsighted.”The Times said Trump was relishing the success of the special forces raid that kidnapped Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, and the willingness of his interim replacement, Delcy Rodriguez, to work with the White House, and believed the same model could be replicated in Iran.‘A jailbreak operation’However, the US-Israeli plan, which Ahmadinejad had been consulted about, “quickly went awry”, according to the US officials who spoke to the Times.Ahmadinejad was reportedly wounded on the first day of the war by an Israeli strike on his home in Tehran, which was intended to free him from house arrest, American officials told the Times. Ahmadinejad survived the strike, they said, bu...
US & Israel planned to install ex-President Ahmadinejad as Iran's ...
At the beginning of the war, the United States and Israel reportedly wanted to instal former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the new Iranian leader. But Ahmadinejad eventually grew disillusioned and the plan failed.At the time of launching the war, the United States and Israel had decided to install former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s new leader after overthrowing the country’s theocratic regime, according to The New York Times.Ahmadinejad initially supported the plan but later grew disillusioned. Moreover, the plan failed as the Iranian regime remains in place.The Times reported that Israel had developed the plan to prop up Ahmadinejad after consultations with him.STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS ADAhmadinejad served as Iran’s president from 2005 to 2013 and was known as a hardliner. He championed Iran’s nuclear programme, staunchly opposed the United States and Israel, and publicly called for Israel to be wiped off the map.More from WorldFollow our live coverage of the West Asia crisis hereThe report comes at a time when US-Iran talks appear to have reached an impasse amid concerns that US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could resume the war. For more than a month, the two sides have observed an uneasy truce even as they have relied on economic coercion to inflict enough economic pain to make the other side blink first.Trump & Netanyahu wanted to implement ‘Venezuela model’ in IranBy propping up Ahmadinejad, Trump and Netanyahu appeared to be attempting to implement the ‘Venezuela model’ in Iran.In Venezuela, Trump partnered with influential sections of the regime to remove President Nicolas Maduro and install a pliant Delcy Rodriguez in his place. Trump’s statements from the initial days of the war suggest he wanted to do something similar in Iran.After urging Iranians to overthrow the regime, Trump had publicly said it would be best if “someone from within” took over the country. How Trump and Netanyahu identified Ahmadinejad as that person is not known.The Times report said it was a “multistage plan” developed by Israel to topple Iran’s theocratic regime.STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS ADBut the plan’s failure highlights how badly Netanyahu and Trump misjudged the situation. They overestimated their ability to destroy the Iranian military, underestimated the resilience of the Iranian regime, and were completely wrong about the level of domestic support they believed the war would generate. More than two months lat...
Report: US, Israel planned to install Ahmadinejad in Iran and helped ...
Strike on former president’s Tehran home reportedly meant to free him from house arrest, but after he was wounded, he backed away from coup plan, according to US officials cited by the New York Timesynet|The New York Times reported overnight Tuesday that the United States and Israel had an unexpected candidate for that “someone from within” — perhaps the last person anyone would have imagined as suitable, or willing: former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, long considered one of Israel’s bitterest enemies.3 View gallery (Photo: ATTA KENARE / AFP)According to officials in Washington, the extraordinary plan was developed by Israel and later joined by U.S. intelligence officials. But senior American officials said it quickly went awry. Officials briefed on the matter and a person close to Ahmadinejad told the paper that the Israeli strike on the first day of the war at Ahmadinejad’s home in Tehran was meant to free him from the house arrest he was under. But after he nearly was killed in the strike, and was wounded, he changed his mind and decided, at least at that point, not to take part in the coup operation.The American and Israeli choice of Ahmadinejad to replace Iran’s leadership was unusual, to say the least. During his presidency from 2005 to 2013, he repeatedly threatened to “wipe Israel and Zionism” off the map. He was known as a Holocaust denier and did not hesitate to use blatant antisemitic rhetoric.The Times noted that it remains unclear how Ahmadinejad was “recruited” for the plan. Many questions remain about how the United States and Israel planned to place him in power, as well as the circumstances surrounding the strike that wounded him. U.S. officials told the paper that the strike, carried out by the Israeli Air Force, was meant to kill the guards watching him in order to free him from house arrest.Ahmadinejad has not been seen in public since the strike, and his whereabouts and condition remain unclear. After the strike on his home, reports circulated that he had been killed, but those were denied shortly afterward. According to The New York Times, his home was not significantly damaged, but satellite images showed that the guard post at the entrance to the street where he lives was completely destroyed.White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly did not directly address the report, saying: “The U.S. military achieved all its objectives, and now negotiators are working on a deal that will end Iran’s nuclear capabilities for good.” Mossad decl...
