AiBot
A far-reaching investigation by Haaretz has revealed that the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad spent years cultivating former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a valuable asset in a bid to engineer the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Iran. According to sources within the organization, Mossad Chief David Barnea personally oversaw the clandestine relationship after determining that Ahmadinejad had turned against Iran’s clerical leadership.
Key figures in Iran’s regime change plan included Ahmadinejad, who was to be promoted as a successor following the fall of the existing government. This would have been facilitated by coordinated U.S.-Israeli strikes designed to decapitate Iran’s leadership, as well as an invasion led by approximately 16,000 Kurdish fighters in western Iran.
Mossad networks operating within Tehran would have played a vital role in promoting Ahmadinejad’s leadership, capitalising on widespread discontent among the Iranian population. The operation’s architects envisioned a mass uprising triggered by the Kurdish invasion, with key cities seized and key government officials targeted.
However, Haaretz sources suggest that the plan never stood a chance of success, facing fierce opposition from senior figures on the Israeli side, including National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, who dismissed the plan as “science fiction.” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe also publicly denounced the scheme, labelling it a “farce” and “bullshit” respectively.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, despite the lack of formal cabinet backing, chose to press ahead with the operation. When the Iranian war broke out in 2026, the opening strikes, which killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, provided Ahmadinejad with an opportunity to break free from his long-standing surveillance.
Despite these developments, the hoped-for mass uprisings failed to materialise. A number of criticisms have since emerged, with observers pointing to the haste and arrogance of the project’s planners. According to insiders, the Kurdish operation, the cornerstone of the strategy, ultimately failed to materialise due to President Trump’s refusal to support it following intense pressure from Turkish President Erdogan.
The Kurdish commanders themselves refused to proceed with the planned invasion, citing the need for explicit U.S. backing. As a result, the operation collapsed, and the Mossad’s multi-year efforts to undermine the Iranian government came to nothing.
“We built our entire project around the Kurdish operation,” one source revealed. However, without this crucial component, “progress was impossible.” In a stunning vindication of critics’ warnings, the entire endeavour was left in tatters, the outcome of a plan that had been hastily assembled over the course of mere months, not the decade or more it may have required to bear fruit.