LONDON: The former president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, met former Mossad spy chief David Barnea in Budapest, Hungary, in 2024 and 2025 as Israel attempted to groom the hardline politician to become the new Iranian leader in the event of regime change in Tehran.
The plan failed, the New York Times reported on Monday. Ahmadinejad remains in Iran and was last seen flanked by security guards during the funeral procession for the former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, last week.
Ahmadinejad served as Iran’s president from 2005 to 2013. He was known for his statements calling for the destruction of Israel, and during his term Tehran resumed its uranium-enrichment program.
He reportedly met Mossad operatives in 2024 and 2025, before Israel and the US launched their war against Iran in February this year, a conflict that spread to other countries in the Middle East as Tehran responded by launching attacks against 10 allies of the US and blocked international shipping, including oil deliveries, in the Strait of Hormuz.
Meetings in Budapest
One of Ahmadinejad’s meetings with Mossad took place in June 2025 in Budapest, shortly before Israel and the US launched strikes against Iranian military and nuclear sites that month. He had also visited the Hungarian capital in April that year.
His meetings with Mossad agents were disguised as invitations to speak at Ludovika University of Public Service, which is where he met Barnea, who, until last month, was the director of the Israeli national intelligence agency.
The US and Israeli intelligence services had been monitoring Ahmadinejad’s increasing alienation from the Iranian regime. He was disqualified from running for president three times and had become increasingly disillusioned with the very system he once defended and had worked to suppress protests against while in power.
Israel secretly provided funds to him for housing and travel, and Israeli operatives met him abroad on several occasions, including during the trips to Budapest, according to US officials who spoke to the New York Times.
Israel viewed him as a potential asset that could be installed as Iran’s new leader, prompting Barnea to meet him personally in Budapest. The CIA was briefed about the plan.
Ahmadinejad told his associates he could assume the role of a reformer in the event of regime change or war, with the help of a foreign power, in a similar vein to the former Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, and even go so far as to normalize ties with Israel as part of US President Donald Trump’s Abraham Accords.
However, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps became suspicious of Ahmadinejad after he sent a public letter to Trump in 2017. The once hardline politician had also changed his appearance; he began to wear tailored suits instead of his trademark oversized khaki windbreaker, groomed his beard, learned English, and reflected on the lyrics of American rap songs in messages posted on social media site X.
Agencies