Yigit Kavur retweetledi
A NYTimes Exclusive:
Days after Israeli strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader, President Trump mused publicly that it would be best if “someone from within” Iran took over the country.
It turns out that the United States and Israel went into the conflict with a particular and very surprising someone in mind: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president known for his hard-line, anti-Israel and anti-American views.
To say that Mr. Ahmadinejad was an unusual choice would be a vast understatement. But U.S. officials spoke during the early days of the war about plans developed with Israel to identify a pragmatist who could take over the country. Officials insisted that there was intelligence that some within the Iranian regime would be willing to work with the United States, even if those people couldn’t be described as “moderates.”
But the audacious plan, developed by the Israelis and which Ahmadinejad had been consulted about, quickly went awry, according to the U.S. officials who were briefed on it.
There are many unanswered questions about how Israel and the United States planned to put Mr. Ahmadinejad in power, and the circumstances surrounding the airstrike that injured him. American officials said that the strike — carried out by the Israeli Air Force — was meant to kill the guards watching over Mr. Ahmadinejad as part of a plan to release him from house arrest.
W\ @MarkMazzettiNYT @julianbarnes and @farnazfassihi via @nytimes
nytimes.com/2026/05/19/us/…
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