Why the New York Times story on Mossad recruiting Ahmadinejad doesn't add up

Why the New York Times story on Mossad recruiting Ahmadinejad doesn't add up Submitted by Marco Carnelos on Thu, 07/23/2026 - 20:44 A toxic figure reviled across the West, the former Iranian president is among the least plausible candidates for an Israeli regime-change plot Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks in Tehran on 2 June 2024 (Atta Kenare/AFP) On The New York Times published an extraordinary investigation this month, asserting that Israel ’s Mossad spent years cultivating former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as an intelligence asset, with the aim of installing him as leader of a post-Islamic-Republic Iran. The report, authored by a team of veteran investigative journalists, describes secret meetings in Budapest, encounters with then-Mossad chief David Barnea, covert payments, and a dramatic wartime extraction of Ahmadinejad from his bombed Tehran compound on 28 February. From this moment, the story becomes confused.