In early 2024, the rector of a college in Budapest obtained a startling request from a high Hungarian authorities official.
The official informed the rector, Professor Gergely Deli, that Ludovika College of Public Service ought to maintain a local weather change convention and lengthen an invite to an unlikely visitor: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the extensively reviled former president of Iran.
Much more stunning was the explanation. The official informed Mr. Deli that the convention was merely a entrance for Mr. Ahmadinejad to have secret discussions in Budapest with intelligence operatives from Israel, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s avowed enemy.
Mr. Deli knew that the invitation may tarnish each his personal popularity and that of the college. However, he mentioned in an interview, he believed he is likely to be enjoying a task in saving lives.
“You have got two enemies, and if these enemies need to speak with one another, then it’s finest to do what you possibly can to make them speak,” he mentioned.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s 2024 go to to the college and a second one the next yr had been a part of a yearslong Israeli effort to groom him as an intelligence asset who, when the time got here, may very well be put in as Iran’s new chief, in accordance with each American and Iranian officers conversant in the operation, who spoke on the situation of anonymity to explain delicate intelligence.
Recruiting Mr. Ahmadinejad was of such precedence for Israel that the nation’s then-spy chief David Barnea even traveled to the Hungarian capital in 2024 to fulfill with Mr. Ahmadinejad personally, in accordance with former American officers. Quickly afterward, they mentioned, Mossad, Israel’s international intelligence service, notified the C.I.A. that it had been involved with Mr. Ahmadinejad.
Israel’s determination to construct a regime-change plan round Mr. Ahmadinejad is a unprecedented twist within the saga of the nation’s relations with the previous president, who was recognized for accelerating Iran’s nuclear program, calling recurrently for the destruction of Israel and denying the Holocaust.
Lately, in accordance with American officers, Israel secretly paid cash to Mr. Ahmadinejad for housing and journey, and Israeli operatives met him overseas on a number of events, together with throughout his journeys to Budapest.
The hassle culminated in late February of this yr — through the first days of the U.S.-Israeli conflict on Iran — with an audacious operation to relocate the previous chief, who had been residing underneath strict surveillance in Tehran. The purpose: to set in movement the plan to topple the present regime and set up Mr. Ahmadinejad.
The plan failed.
On Feb. 28, an Israeli airstrike hit Mr. Ahmadinejad’s compound, concentrating on the constructing of his bodyguards and his armored automobile. After the strike, in accordance with 4 senior Iranian officers, a black Peugeot automobile arrived, picked up Mr. Ahmadinejad and whisked him away at excessive pace from the chaotic scene.
American and Iranian officers with data of the operation mentioned the automobile had been pushed by Mossad operatives, who took Mr. Ahmadinejad to a secret secure home in Iran.
However the former Iranian chief was upset concerning the frantic rescue operation, and he gave the impression to be disillusioned concerning the Israeli plan to return him to energy, in accordance with folks with data of what occurred.
He finally left the secure home underneath circumstances which might be nonetheless unclear. Mr. Ahmadinejad was not seen in public once more till final Monday, when he made a short look on the funeral procession for the slain supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
His present standing stays unsure. However 4 senior Iranian officers mentioned that Mr. Ahmadinejad was within the custody of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence wing, underneath home arrest now that Iran has realized about a lot of his interactions with Israel.
Israeli officers haven’t commented publicly concerning the plan to put in Mr. Ahmadinejad as Iran’s chief, which was a part of a broader try to topple the federal government in Tehran. One other component concerned arming and coaching Iranian Kurdish opposition forces primarily based in northern Iraq to cross into western Iran, maintain territory there and finally transfer towards the capital Tehran, an effort that by no means manifested.
The regime-change plan concerned a “sequence of particular operations, very, very distinctive, that was alleged to occur,” Tamir Hayman, a former head of intelligence for the Israeli Protection Forces, told the PBS speak present “Firing Line” in Could, after The New York Occasions first revealed particulars of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s function within the plan. “And Ahmadinejad was a part of that sequence.”
Mossad officers didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a spokesman for Mr. Ahmadinejad, declined to remark.
A post-presidential shift
Because the president of Iran from 2005 to 2013, Mr. Ahmadinejad was the nation’s most distinguished hard-line politician. He spoke of eliminating Israel, and underneath his rule Iran restarted a program to counterpoint uranium, elevating suspicions that it was pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program. Mr. Ahmadinejad ordered violent crackdowns on a nationwide rebellion contesting his re-election in 2009, and, underneath his rule, the judiciary carried out mass executions of dissidents and jailed opponents and rivals.
However within the years after he left the presidency, Mr. Ahmadinejad tempered his views and toned down the anti-Israel rhetoric that had marked his time in workplace. He was typically keen to point out off his newly minted average facet, granting interviews and giving speeches by which he opined on Iran’s pop music tradition, criticized the nation’s safety forces for heavy-handed crackdowns and accused the ruling class of monetary corruption.
He deserted his signature oversize khaki windbreaker and commenced sporting tailor-made fits. He groomed his messy beard, appeared to get Botox remedy and commenced studying English.
In his workplace in Tehran, he held hourlong public conferences every morning to listen to the grievances of peculiar folks, some who got here to him in search of assist navigating authorities paperwork. Every now and then, he wrote letters to authorities ministries recommending petitioners for loans. He traveled recurrently across the nation, assembly with supporters each in cities and rural provinces.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s relationship with the Iranian authorities was difficult. Senior leaders marginalized him and restricted his actions, but they allowed him a seat alongside different senior officers on a high-level council that advises the supreme chief. He attended the council’s assembly in February, just a few days earlier than the conflict started.
Many in Iran noticed cynical political motives in Mr. Ahmadinejad’s transformation, which they seen as an try to burnish his populist credentials and distance himself from ruling officers. He retained a base of help amongst working-class Iranians, and his advisers had been sure that his purpose was to someday return to energy.
“Ahmadinejad wouldn’t do that for cash. He has cash; he has a large financial community. He would do it for energy. He desires to be on the helm of energy,” Abdolreza Davari, a former shut affiliate and senior adviser of Mr. Ahmadinejad, mentioned in a telephone interview. The 2 males had a falling-out a number of years in the past.
Mr. Ahmadinejad informed a handful of his closest associates and confidants about his ambitions to develop into Iran’s future chief with the assistance of international powers, in accordance with an affiliate in his shut circle, who spoke on the situation of anonymity to explain personal discussions.
Mr. Ahmadinejad grew to become disillusioned with the Islamic republic system after he was disqualified to run for president thrice, the affiliate mentioned, and concluded that he couldn’t ascend to energy so long as the present system remained in place.
He was involved that, within the occasion of a conflict and regime change, Individuals and Israelis would select some opposition determine outdoors Iran who didn’t know the nation and Iran can be destabilized, the affiliate mentioned. He described himself to these round him as somebody who may play the function of a reformer, like the previous Russian president Boris Yeltsin, and mentioned that if he got here to energy, Iran would acknowledge Israel and normalize relations as a part of President Trump’s Abraham Accords, the affiliate mentioned.
Israeli intelligence companies had been intently following the brewing rift between Mr. Ahmadinejad and the Iranian regime throughout this era, in accordance with two Israeli protection officers conversant in intelligence assessments at the moment. Of specific curiosity, the officers mentioned, was Mr. Ahmadinejad’s rising resentment of Ayatollah Khamenei and different senior figures who had disqualified Mr. Ahmadinejad from operating for president once more.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s actions started to arouse suspicion inside the intelligence department of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is answerable for safeguarding the Islamic republic towards international interference. That suspicion grew, in accordance with two members of the Guards and an intelligence official conversant in the case, after Mr. Ahmadinejad started sending public letters in 2017 to Mr. Trump and later to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Mr. Trump lavished reward on each males.
After the Israeli strike this yr that originally freed Mr. Ahmadinejad from surveillance by the Guards, Iran’s intelligence companies started investigating and piecing collectively his connection to Israel, in accordance with the 4 officers.
Abroad conferences
It’s unclear when Israeli operatives first tried to recruit Mr. Ahmadinejad. Iranian officers mentioned there was a minimum of some contact throughout a 2023 trip that Mr. Ahmadinejad took to Guatemala to attend a convention centered on the atmosphere. The invitation got here from the federal government of Guatemala, a rustic that has nearer diplomatic ties to Israel than most in Latin America.
Mr. Ahmadinejad nearly didn’t make the journey, as he was stopped on the airport in Tehran by safety forces who refused to challenge him a boarding cross and permit him to go away the nation.
He staged an hourslong sit-in on the airport, which grew to become a public spectacle as he took images with peculiar Iranian vacationers, airport and airline employees and posted updates on his social media pages.
Ultimately, Iranian authorities allowed Mr. Ahmadinejad to board the aircraft and attend the convention.
“Some folks informed me to not journey to Guatemala; I informed them my brother the minister of atmosphere invited me,” Mr. Ahmadinejad mentioned in one of many movies of the journey. “It is a crucial nation in Latin America.”
The next yr, he made his first journey to Hungary to attend the Ludovika College convention, assembly in Budapest with Mr. Barnea, who led Mossad for 5 years, till final month.
Hungary, which was led at the moment by the right-wing prime minister Viktor Orban, had maybe nearer ties to Israel than some other European nation, and Mr. Orban and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel made journeys to one another’s nations. Mr. Netanyahu gave a speech of his personal in April 2025 at Ludovika College, which introduced him with a public service award.
Two months later, Mr. Ahmadinejad returned to Budapest, simply days earlier than Israel launched a conflict in Iran, a go to that was a canopy for him to fulfill with Israeli intelligence operatives.
His Iranian bodyguards from the Guards’ Ansar unit, who accompanied Mr. Ahmadinejad on all his international journey, reported that, on a minimum of two events, he had managed to shake off his safety element and disappear for lengthy conferences through the June 2025 journey. In a report concerning the journey, the bodyguards mentioned that that they had confronted Mr. Ahmadinejad about his disappearances, and that he had informed them he had been assembly with college professors, in accordance with the 2 Iranian Guards members and one intelligence official.
On the college convention, the previous Iranian president delivered a lecture in English, shocking attendees by abandoning the signature Quranic verse he had as soon as recited initially of each speech.
Wearing a tailor-made darkish blue swimsuit, he spoke about “shared humanity” and a “altering world order,” providing his personal views on how a brand new world may emerge, in accordance with movies from the journey posted on his social media web page.
He introduced Mr. Deli, the college rector, with a duplicate of the Ebook of Kings, by the traditional Iranian poet Ferdowsi. Mr. Deli gave Mr. Ahmadinejad an emblem of the college.
In an interview final month, Mr. Deli mentioned that, in extending an invite to Mr. Ahmadinejad, he had performed the function of a “strohmann” — German for “frontman” or “puppet.”
Till final week, Mr. Ahmadinejad had not been seen in public since late February, when he was whisked away from his Tehran residence within the black Peugeot.
Final Monday, he made a short, shock look as a part of Ayatollah Khamenei’s funeral procession. Movies of the procession confirmed Mr. Ahmadinejad, sporting a heavy jacket within the 90-degree warmth, with a surgical masks pulled all the way down to his chin. Iran’s two different residing former presidents, Hassan Rouhani and Mohammad Khatami, weren’t invited and didn’t seem in any of the funeral ceremonies.
Mr. Ahmadinejad stood together with his head down, not talking, flanked on all sides by what gave the impression to be safety guards.
