Former Iran president was meant to be installed as new supreme leader, bombshell report claims

Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president of Iran, was meant to be installed as the country's new Supreme Leader earlier this year after the U.S. and Israel launched military strikes killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior members of Iran's regime, according to a bombshell report by The New York Times. 

The Times report claims unnamed U.S. officials said an elaborate plan, developed by the Israelis, had been put in place ahead of the military strikes on the morning of Feb. 28, the first day of the war, and Ahmadinejad was reportedly in on the plan and had agreed to be installed as the new country's new supreme leader. But the carefully constructed arrangement went off the rails that same day.

According to the Times, Ahmadinejad had been placed under house arrest by the Iranian regime some time ago, and part of the opening attacks involved a strike on his home in Tehran, which was meant to set him free rather than kill him. But Ahmadinejad was injured during the strike on his home. He survived, contrary to some initial reports indicating that he had been killed, but the experience reportedly rattled him and caused him to lose faith in the plan to make him the supreme leader. He disappeared and hasn't been seen or heard from since.

Given his history of calling for Israel to be wiped off the map and his constant refrains of "Death to America," Ahmadinejad seemed on the surface to be an odd choice for the U.S. and Israel to install as the new supreme leader. But in the years during his post-presidency, Ahmadinejad had rubbed the regime leaders the wrong way by openly criticizing the ayatollah, accusing the leaders of being corrupt, and he'd been repeatedly denied the chance to run for president again. 

U.S. officials, the Times reported, said they and President Trump viewed Ahmadinejad as a figure who could "play a very important role" in working with the U.S. to achieve its goals of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Trump, the report said, viewed the approach as one based on a template used in Venezuela, where Nicholas Maduro's former vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, has worked closely with the White House since Maduro's January arrest. Plus, Ahmadinejad was on the record as having praised President Trump. In an interview with The New York Times seven years ago, Ahmadinejad touted Trump as "a man of action." 

Read the full story from The New York Times here and below watch a reaction to the explosive report from Meir Javedanfar, a Tel Aviv-based college professor who's an expert on Israel and Iran relations.