Fresh questions have been raised over the US and Israeli effort to depose the Iranian regime after it was claimed that Israel wanted to put the populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power. The New York Times reported that Israel bombed a security building close to his Tehran home to help him escape house arrest, but he became uneasy about the operation.
Ahmadinejad's turbulent presidency, from 2005 to 2013, was marked by incendiary attacks on Israel but he recast himself as a critic of the regime and champion of the poor after falling out with the supreme leader Ali Khamenei. The plans were widely seen as implausible or as disinformation put out by Ahmadinejad's supporters or Israeli intelligence services.
The episode shows that the US and Israel overestimated opposition to the regime and their own ability to bring it down with airstrikes. Donald Trump, faced with domestic anger over rising gas prices, has been seeking to extricate himself from the conflict but is considering more airstrikes to force Tehran to meet his terms.
Trump said on Monday that he had delayed a fresh attack after an intervention by Gulf leaders. On Tuesday he held a lengthy phone call with Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, which covered the potential resumption of hostilities. Asked if Israel could be stopped from attacking Iran, Trump told reporters: 'Netanyahu will do whatever I want him to do.'
Iranian media treated the New York Times report with scepticism, and said the former president had not been under house arrest. At the time of the initial Israeli attacks on Tehran, on 28 February, there were reports in the Iranian media that Ahmadinejad had been killed in a strike on his home. It later emerged that a security outpost outside his home had been hit.
Ahmadinejad would be an unlikely ally for Netanyahu because of his Holocaust denial and virulently anti-Israeli policies. His authority declined markedly when he fell out with Khamenei in 2011, and he was arrested in 2018 after criticising the government. He has been repeatedly blocked from standing again for the presidency.
