The strange afterlife of Iran’s firebrand president
New York Times report claiming former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was considered by some US officials for a post-war role in Iran triggered a storm of speculation, ridicule and conspiracy theories inside Iran.
The report alleged that during the opening days of Israeli and US attacks on Iran, discussions took place in Washington about whether Ahmadinejad could help manage a political transition after the collapse of the Islamic Republic’s leadership and the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
But many Iranian commentators quickly questioned both the credibility of the report and the assumptions behind it.
Conservative journalist Parisa Nasr described the story as “weak and flimsy” in a post on X, arguing that circulating such narratives under current conditions risked contributing to “wartime psychological operations.”
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