How Mossad Almost Succeeded to Cultivate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Asset for Regime Change in Iran

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, once Israel's fiercest public critic, secretly became centerpiece of Mossad-backed regime-change plot

In second week of July 2026, well known newspapers like The New York Times, Haaretz, and The Guardian revealed bombshell reports on one of the most astonishing espionage operations in modern history. The reports said Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, had spent several years running a highly secretive operation cultivating Iran’s former hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, infamous for anti-Israel stand. They were grooming him to take over power as a transition leader after a planned regime overthrow.

Yet, despite spending millions of dollars, doing high-stakes secret meetings, and conducting a dramatic armed rescue, the plan collapsed, leaving Ahmadinejad in the custody of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). If Mossad had succeeded in its plan, then it would have been an even better and bigger success of Israel than Eli Cohen of 1960s who infiltrated into Syria and almost became the Deputy Defence Minister.

1. Why Ahmadinejad - The Shift

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran from 2005 to 2013 was well known known for his virulently anti-Israel rhetoric, Holocaust denial, and aggressive pursuit of Iran's nuclear program. However, after leaving office, his trajectory shifted dramatically:

• Domestic Marginalization: - Ahmadinejad was repeatedly barred by the Guardian Council from running for president again in 2017 and 2021.
• Vocal Dissidence: - He became a fierce internal critic of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), frequently accusing high-level officials of rampant corruption and systemic mismanagement.
• A Changed Stance: - According to intelligence sources, Ahmadinejad had privately concluded that Iran could not survive under crushing international sanctions and that its nuclear program had become a massive burden rather than an asset.
• The Makeover: - He began cultivating a more moderate public image, trimming his beard, swapping his signature windbreaker for tailored suits, improving his English, and positioning himself as a champion for everyday Iranians.

Recognizing his deep ambition and his growing alienation from the Iranian establishment, Mossad saw a unique opportunity to build a bridge.

2. The Cultivation - How Mossad Recruited Iran’s Ex President

The alliance between the Mossad and a man who once called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" was born out of shared desperation and mutual political opportunity.

a. The Pivot (2022) - After leaving office in 2013, Ahmadinejad’s relationship with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was fractured completely. He was repeatedly barred from running for office by Guardian Council of Iran in 2017, 2021 and was placed under heavy state surveillance.

According to reports, Ahmadinejad had reached a quiet conclusion; the Islamic Republic of Iran could not survive international sanctions, and its nuclear program had become a catastrophic burden rather than an asset. He began undergoing a massive personal makeover—trimming his beard, discarding his iconic working-class white jackets, learnt English, and rebranded himself to the public as a reformist defender of ordinary Iranians. The Mossad took notice of these shifts.

b. Secret Meetings and Payoffs (2023–2025) - Ahmadinejad realized foreign intervention was his only realistic path back to power, and Israel saw him as a figure who still possessed immense popularity among Iran's lower-income classes.

• Guatemala (2023): The first quiet contacts occurred during Ahmadinejad's trip to an environmental conference. Guatemala is one of the 8 countries from across the world who have recognized Jerusalem as Capital of Israel and have an Embassy in Jerusalem.

• Budapest, Hungary (2024 & 2025): Under the cover of climate and academic conferences at Ludovika University, Ahmadinejad twice managed to shake his IRGC security detail. Senior Hungarian government officials under Viktor Orban reportedly helped coordinate invitations for Ahmadinejad to attend academic and climate conferences at Ludovika University in Budapest. The university rector later acknowledged that the invitations were arranged to provide cover for clandestine meetings.

• The Spy Chief's Intervention: The operation was deemed so critical that then-Mossad chief David Barnea personally flew to Budapest to meet and groom Ahmadinejad, even skipping top-level security briefings in Israel during the height of the Gaza conflict to focus on the Iranian asset. Israel reportedly subsidized Ahmadinejad’s high-end travel and lodging.

c. The Secret Promise - A close associate of ex-president had revealed that Ahmadinejad had agreed with Mossad that once installed in power under a post-theocratic regime, Iran would formally recognize Israel and join the Abraham Accords. It would have been a sea change in behavior of Iran, that refuses to recognize Israel.

According to the explosive reports by The New York Times and Haaretz, yes, the trip to Guatemala is believed to be the exact moment the contacts began. While the most direct face-to-face meetings between Ahmadinejad and Mossad chief David Barnea took place later in Budapest (under the cover of academic conferences), Guatemala was the catalyst that set the entire operation in motion.

• The 2023 Environmental Conference: - In 2023, Ahmadinejad travelled to Guatemala to attend an international environmental and water resource conference.

• The Intelligence Red Flags: - Guatemala has historically maintained very warm diplomatic and intelligence ties with Israel. Ahmadinejad's decision to travel there immediately raised major red flags for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iranian intelligence, who suspected he used the trip to slip away and establish his initial channel of communication with Mossad operatives. During a June 2025 trip to Budapest, Ahmadinejad successfully managed to slip away from his IRGC bodyguards twice to meet with Israeli operatives, which lasted for several hours.

• The Paper Trail: - According to the leaked intelligence reports, Iranian officials tracing Ahmadinejad's subsequent clandestine movements and funding eventually traced the origin of his back-channel Israeli contacts directly to this 2023 Guatemala trip.

d. The Official Denial: - While Ahmadinejad's office has fiercely denied the entire report—calling it "completely false" and a "Hollywood-style" fabrication designed to sow paranoia in Tehran—intelligence analysts agree that the Guatemala trip was the crucial turning point where Iranian authorities first realized his loyalties had fundamentally shifted. Although the ex-president was briefly seen at the mourning’s of slain supreme leader started, but he has since been out of view.

3. The Timeline of the Plot & Its Failure

The plan, codenamed "Operation Puss in Boots" was designed as part of multi-pronged regime overthrow plan in Iran.

a. Developing the Operation - Late 2025

Mossad puts lot of effort to coordinate massive destabilization in nations it thinks are Israel’s enemy. The plan for Iran included organizing domestic civil unrest, mobilizing ethnic minorities, and arming Kurdish forces in northern Iraq to invade western Iran. Besides that Mossad with IDF help also built 2 clandestine airbases deep in Western Iraq desert to support rescue missions.

b. The Strike and the Rescue - February 28, 2026

US and Israeli airstrike struck the heart of Iranian regime, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The entire operation was designed to culminate during a broader conflict. When the USA and Israel launched military strikes against Iranian nuclear and military installations in February 2026, the Ahmadinejad plan was also set into motion. Amid the chaos, a four-man Mossad team in a black Peugeot executed a tactical raid, freeing Ahmadinejad from his IRGC-guarded home and securing him in a safe house in Tehran.

c. The Collapse of the Plan - March 2026

Although Ahmadinejad was successfully transported to a secret safe house inside Iran; geopolitical assumptions of the plot fell apart. Ahmadinejad became highly distressed by the frantic, chaotic nature of his extraction and grew deeply disillusioned with being installed as an obvious Israeli puppet. He walked out of the safe house under mysterious circumstances.

d. Capture and Aftermath - Mid 2026

As Ahmadinejad walked out of the safe house under mysterious circumstances; he was quickly captured and detained by the IRGC's intelligence wing. Alongside, the assumed Kurdish invasion that was centerpiece of the plot failed entirely.

4. Why the Puppet Operation Failed

While the "Operation Puss in Boots" was daring, it suffered from critical flaws that ultimately brought it down. Too many things were not accounted for like: -

• The Geopolitical Domino Effect: - The centerpiece of the regime change was supposed to be a Kurdish militia that rules North Iraq to push into Iran to fracture the regime's defense. However, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, viewing a strong Kurdish force as an existential threat, successfully convinced US President Donald Trump to withdraw American backing for the Kurdish statehood plan, stalling the entire military offensive.
• Ahmadinejad's Cold Feet: - The former president wanted to return to power as a savior, not as a hostage. Once he witnessed the absolute chaos of the war and realized that Israel intended to micromanage his leadership, he panicked, rejected the role, and abandoned his safe house, and walked out without any problem from the safe house.
• Warnings from IDF Intelligence: - Before the operation even started, senior Israeli military intelligence officials had fiercely warned Mossad that trying to install an unpopular, external figure in a sudden power vacuum was a fantasy. They correctly predicted that removing Khamenei without a strong internal transition plan would simply lead to a brutal military junta run by the IRGC, which is precisely what occurred.

5. The Aftermath and Current Status

Following his escape from the safe house, Ahmadinejad vanished from the public eye for several weeks, prompting rumours that he had been killed. However, he made a brief, highly guarded public appearance at the start of state funeral of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

According to senior Iranian officials, Ahmadinejad was swiftly arrested by the intelligence wing of the IRGC once his covert contacts with Israel were uncovered, and he remains under strict house arrest.

6. Was it Real or Psychological Warfare?

While the reports rely on highly placed intelligence officials, many independent analysts urge caution. Some suggest that even if the meetings did take place, the deliberate leaking of this story by Western or Israeli intelligence may itself be a highly calculated move. By portraying a former hardline president as a Mossad asset, the leak successfully sows deep distrust, paranoia, and instability within the highest echelons of the Iranian regime.

Another reason for the leak may have been Mossad’s need to show its capability of reaching anywhere or anyone it wanted in Iran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) did not discover Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s ties to Mossad overnight. Instead, they slowly pieced the conspiracy together over three years through aggressive physical surveillance, slip-ups by Ahmadinejad himself, and a paper trail left by his international travels.

7. Slip-Ups by Ahmadinejad

a. Guatemala & Airport Drama: - Even before the ex-president made direct contact, the IRGC’s intelligence wing was highly suspicious of Ahmadinejad’s growing domestic dissidence. When he announced plans to travel to an environmental conference in Guatemala in 2023, Iranian security forces initially barred him from flying. He was denied boarding pass. He sat on public sit-in at the airport lounge for several hours meeting people, and used social media to pressure the government, after much drama he was allowed to go.  Guatemala’s historically close ties with Israel immediately put the IRGC on high alert. Intelligence officials later traced the origin of his back-channel communication with Mossad directly to this trip.

b. Shaking-off Handlers in Budapest: - Whenever Ahmadinejad travelled abroad, he was accompanied by a rotation of IRGC bodyguards who served a dual purpose: protecting him and spying on him.

• The Disappearance: During his second trip to Budapest, Hungary, in June 2025, Ahmadinejad managed to slip away from his IRGC minders on two separate occasions for several hours each.
• The Clumsy Alibi: When his handlers confronted him about where he had gone during those unaccounted hours, Ahmadinejad claimed he had simply been "meeting with university professors". The excuse was flimsy, and his handlers reported the anomalies directly back to Tehran, sparking an active internal investigation.

8. Tracing the Financial and Political Trail (2024–2025)

Following the Budapest slip-up, the IRGC's intelligence wing began quietly wiretapping Ahmadinejad and monitoring his inner circle.

• The Spokesperson's Movements: They discovered that Israel had been funnelling secret payments to Ali Akbar Javanfekr, Ahmadinejad's long-time spokesperson, to cover housing and travel costs.
• Behavioral Shifts: Analysts noticed Ahmadinejad had become increasingly secluded in Tehran, meeting with very few of his usual domestic allies, while his public rhetoric grew sharper against the Supreme Leader.

If Mossad had succeeded in its plan, then it would have been an even better and bigger success of Israel than Eli Cohen of 1960s who infiltrated into Syria and almost became the Deputy Defence Minister. But Israel’s overconfidence that it could make Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former hardliner president of Iran into a turncoat asset who toes their line without considering the repercussions of the wider plan of regime change of which this plan was part of, meant that probably this plan was doomed to fail from start. Also, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s office vehemently denying the reports; the leaks published by The New York Times, Haaretz, and The Guardian in bombshell reports could be taken with pinch of salt. But usually, these papers rarely publish such type of wild claims without any proof. It remains to be seen how much of the leaks are true.