As a retired senior officer in Israel’s military intelligence, I understand some of the calculations that were likely behind the Mossad’s alleged plan to topple the current Iranian regime and install former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. At the same time, if the reports are true, I’m convinced that Israeli intelligence officials were wrong in betting on Ahmadinejad’s ability to actually bring change.
I can’t take into consideration the behind-the-scenes factors I’m not privy to, but based on the public accounts of the Mossad-Ahmadinejad plot, here’s what I think the Israeli intelligence community got right, where I see a big miss, and where the future opportunities may be for intelligence agencies looking to spark regime change in the Islamic Republic.
One of the elements of the Ahmadinejad escapade that stands out the most is how bonkers it sounds—more like a spy thriller or a movie than real life.
One of the elements of the Ahmadinejad escapade that stands out the most is how bonkers it sounds—more like a spy thriller or a movie than real life. After all, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the Iranian leader who famously called for Israel to be wiped off the map. The idea that he might be receptive to working with Israel seems almost as absurd as the idea that Israel would want him back in power.
The thing with intelligence intrigues, though, is that surprise is one of the most potent tools in an espionage agency’s toolbox. Take Israel’s beeper operation of 2024, in which explosives that the Mossad embedded in thousands of pagers used by the Hezbollah terror group detonated across Lebanon, wounding nearly 3,000 Hezbollah members and killing several.
The plan succeeded not because it was obvious but because it was so audacious that it was beyond the imagination of most people. The out-of-the-box thinking in both cases signals the creativity that makes for successful intelligence gambits.
Access to the people you need to reach is another critical element of intelligence operations. In the case of Ahmadinejad, Israeli intelligence agents reportedly were able to create opportunities to meet him in third countries like Guatemala and Hungary.
The plot appears to have included the components of creativity and access, but these are not sufficient. A third critical element - one that seems to have been missing here - is whether the resources you have access to are the ones that are most likely to help you achieve your ultimate goals.
And that’s where the plan stumbled.
Israeli intelligence agents were faced with a significant challenge when looking for an ally inside Iran: There is no credible Iranian opposition movement that is likely to be able to lead a revolution and ultimately, to lead the country. Even before tens of thousands of protesters were killed by the Revolutionary Guards in January, the Iranian opposition was fragmented, and dissidents such as Reza Pahalavi, who is the son of the last shah of Iran and is living in exile in the U.S., were seen as incapable of removing the regime from power.
Israeli intelligence agents were faced with a significant challenge when looking for an ally inside Iran: There is no credible Iranian opposition movement that is likely to be able to lead a revolution and ultimately, to lead the country.
That scarcity of opposition leaders is likely a major reason that the Mossad reportedly focused on Ahmadinejad. His two-term stint as president of Iran, from 2005 to 2013, may seem to make Ahmadinejad an insider of the Iranian regime. But he may have been an appealing candidate for Israeli intelligence because in other ways he was a political outsider: a civil engineer rather than a cleric or a Revolutionary Guard leader.
What’s more, even the many who want to see regime change have reason to fear the chaos of a power vacuum that could arise from attempting to install a leader with no ties to the regime. So there was certainly an element of logic in choosing a quasi-insider quasi-outsider who previously led the country yet was also held at arm’s length by the regime, with Iran’s Guardian Council twice barring Ahmadinejad from running for reelection.
Still, Ahmadinejad appears to be missing one of the most critical characteristics of a leader who could take Iran in a new direction: pragmatism.
Ahmadinejad may have been Iran’s first non-cleric president in 24 years, but he won the presidency and defeated a more moderate rival in 2005 thanks to the support of hard-line conservatives. An ayatollah who became one of Ahmadinejad’s most fervent supporters at the time told Iranians that every vote they cast for him would be a bullet in the heart of the United States.
Iran’s nuclear project—one of the major reasons Iran and the U.S. have cited for attacking Iran—was pushed forward under Ahmadinejad. Iran resumed nuclear enrichment just a few days after he took office and rejected an International Atomic Energy Agency resolution to halt its nuclear program. Ahmadinejad publicly defended Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, announcing at the UN General Assembly in September 2005 that Iran has an “inalienable right” to produce nuclear fuel.
In this case, it seems that the groundwork was not adequately prepared and that the understandings with Ahmadinejad were fragile enough for him to get cold feet.
The right person to lead Iran into a brighter future is not one of the core figures behind its messianic goals and nuclear advancement. Attempts at spurring regime change should focus on leaders, either within or outside the regime, who have popular support, are ready to stop exporting the Islamic revolution and suppressing the Iranian people, and are pragmatic enough to concede on the nuclear project, stop building more ballistic missiles, and recognize that the future of Iran is guaranteed not by bombs or missiles but by having a functioning country that isn’t being torn apart by a battered economy beset by international sanctions, soaring inflation, a currency at record lows and widespread unemployment.
Ultimately, even the best-laid plans need luck and good timing, elements that are not always in intelligence agents’ control. In this case, it seems that the groundwork was not adequately prepared and that the understandings with Ahmadinejad were fragile enough for him to get cold feet.
The key missing element here was not success—it was the absence of a true pragmatist. The leaders who Iranian citizens and the world really need are those who want to reform the regime and raise the country from its knees - and are pragmatic enough to make the nuclear and other concessions desperately needed to get there.
Published originally on September 1, 2026.
