A new report says U.S. and Israeli planners initially looked at former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a possible postwar leader for Iran, turning the crisis into a sharper regime-change story just as Washington is publicly talking up negotiations.
i24NEWS, citing The New York Times, reported that the United States and Israel entered the Iran war with a plan to install Ahmadinejad after the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The report said the Israeli-developed plan imagined a multistage collapse of Iran’s government and that Ahmadinejad had been consulted about the idea.
The New Indian Express, also citing the Times report, said the alleged plan centered on reinstating Ahmadinejad despite his past anti-Israel rhetoric and his hardline record as president from 2005 to 2013. ANI reported the same core claim and said the plan was linked to President Donald Trump’s early-war remark that it would be better if “someone from within” Iran took power.
The New Angle Is Regime Change
This is materially different from the Iran crisis updates List25 has already covered this week. The recent stories have focused on Trump delaying a planned strike at Gulf leaders’ request, JD Vance saying talks were making progress, Senate war-powers pressure, new sanctions, and Iran’s Hormuz leverage. This report goes behind the current diplomatic track and points to an earlier, more ambitious objective: a U.S.-Israeli effort to shape who might rule Iran after the opening phase of the war.
That matters because the public line from Washington has increasingly emphasized negotiations, nuclear limits, and ending the war. A reported Ahmadinejad option suggests some planners were also considering a much more intrusive political outcome, even if that strategy later fell apart.
The Reported Strike On Ahmadinejad’s Home Is The Key Detail
According to i24NEWS, the Times report said an Israeli strike on Ahmadinejad’s Tehran home on the opening day of the war was designed to free him from house arrest. The strike reportedly injured him but did not kill him. One associate described it as, in effect, a jailbreak operation meant to eliminate IRGC personnel guarding him.
The New Indian Express reported that Ahmadinejad survived the strike but later grew disillusioned with the broader plan. It also said his current whereabouts remain unknown and that he has not appeared publicly since the strike.
Those details are important, but they also require caution. The White House has not publicly confirmed that installing Ahmadinejad was a U.S. objective. The available reports attribute the claim to officials and associates described as briefed on the plan. That makes the story significant, but still something readers should understand as a reported plan, not an officially acknowledged policy.
Why Ahmadinejad Would Be Such A Strange Choice
Ahmadinejad is not a moderate opposition figure. He is remembered internationally for confrontation with the West, backing Iran’s nuclear program, and inflammatory rhetoric toward Israel. His presidency also overlapped with the violent crackdown on Iran’s 2009 Green Movement protests.
But he later clashed with Iran’s clerical establishment. The reports say he had been under house arrest or close watch in Tehran before the war. That seems to be the logic behind the alleged plan: use a known Iranian political figure who had broken with the current ruling structure, rather than try to impose an unknown exile or foreign-backed transitional leader.
It was still a high-risk bet. A figure controversial enough to be known internationally is also controversial enough to fracture support inside Iran. Some U.S. officials were reportedly skeptical that Ahmadinejad could be a viable postwar leader.
The Plan Appears To Have Collapsed Quickly
ANI reported that the broader plan envisioned a three-stage collapse of Iran’s government, but that the expected political upheaval did not produce a complete regime collapse. The New Indian Express similarly reported that the result showed planners may have underestimated the resilience of Iran’s institutions.
That is the part with the biggest strategic consequence. If the report is accurate, the early-war plan did not simply fail to produce a clean transition. It may have left Washington and Israel with a harder problem: they damaged the Iranian state without creating a credible replacement power center.
That helps explain why the crisis has shifted back toward talks, Gulf mediation, congressional pressure, and threats of renewed strikes. The regime-change lane, at least as described in these reports, appears to have narrowed fast.
What To Watch Next
The first question is whether the White House, Israel, or Iranian officials respond directly to the Ahmadinejad reporting. A denial, confirmation, or partial clarification would shape how seriously other governments treat the claim.
The second question is whether Ahmadinejad reappears publicly. If he remains unseen, speculation over his condition and role will continue. If he surfaces, what he says about the reported plan could matter almost as much as the original report.
The third question is whether this damages the negotiation track. Tehran can use the story to argue that U.S. talks are only a cover for regime change. Washington, meanwhile, will likely try to keep attention on nuclear limits, Hormuz access, and ending the war.
For now, the breaking development is not that Ahmadinejad is taking power. He is not. The news is that credible English-language reports say U.S. and Israeli planners once viewed him as a possible instrument for reshaping Iran after Khamenei’s death. That is a new and much darker lens on the opening phase of the war.
Sources: i24NEWS, The New Indian Express, ANI, citing The New York Times.