According to a report by The Times of Israel on Wednesday, 20 May 2026, an article in The New York Times claims that during the US Israel conflict with Tehran, Israeli war planners at one stage considered the possibility of reinstating former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a potential leader in the event that Iran’s government collapsed.…....
The report alleges that this idea formed part of a broader, multi-phase strategy that also included contingency planning involving the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other senior officials prior to the outbreak of wider hostilities.
The overall concept, according to the article, was based on triggering a combination of internal unrest and sustained military strikes designed to destabilise the Iranian حکومت and create conditions for regime collapse. In such a scenario, Israeli planners reportedly explored various transitional leadership options to fill a potential power vacuum.
The New York Times report further claims that Ahmadinejad was at some point made aware of the idea. However, it also notes that his position reportedly shifted after he was injured in an Israeli strike in Tehran, which was allegedly intended to free him from house detention. Since then, his public political profile is said to have significantly diminished.
The suggestion of Ahmadinejad as a possible transitional figure was described in the report as highly unusual, given his long-standing political record, including his support for Iran’s nuclear programme and his strongly anti-Israel rhetoric. The article noted that, despite internal disagreements with elements of Iran’s leadership, he would be considered an unexpected and controversial choice.
The reported plan is said to have involved multiple stages. The first phase allegedly centred on coordinated US and Israeli airstrikes targeting Iranian government infrastructure and senior officials. A second phase was said to depend on Kurdish groups applying pressure from Iran’s border regions to further destabilise the state.
However, according to the report, the second phase never materialised. Israeli officials reportedly believed that sustained military pressure, internal instability, and external opposition could eventually lead to the collapse of Iran’s governing structure.
The article concludes that the broader objective was to allow a new political order to emerge from the aftermath of widespread conflict and institutional breakdown.
