In Ahmadinejad We Trust

After the United States killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on February 28, speculation abounded who his replacement would be. One person I was curious about was former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I wasn’t alone. Israel too thought he could become Iran’s leader someday. According to a July 13 New York Times report, Israel was grooming Ahmadinejad for years for a moment like this.

This is the same leader who famously said Israel must be “wiped off the map.” This is the same leader who helped turn Iran’s nuclear program into the system it is today.

Why is Israel trusting him?

The Allegations

According “an associate in his close circle” speaking with the Times, “Ahmadinejad told a handful of his closest associates and confidants about his ambitions to become Iran’s future leader with the help of foreign powers …. Mr. Ahmadinejad became disillusioned with the Islamic Republic system after he was disqualified to run for president three times, the associate said, and concluded that he could not ascend to power as long as the current system remained in place.” Israel meanwhile had apparently been reaching out to him since at least 2023. According to the Times, Ahmadinejad had even claimed he would recognize Israel if Israel helped him gain power.

When Israel and the U.S. started the bombing campaign in February, Ahmadinejad was under house arrest, surrounded by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Iranian government had apparently been suspicious of him for some time. The initial U.S.-Israeli bombing hit Ahmadinejad’s compound, sending his security detail in disarray. Then, according to the Times’s sources, “a black Peugeot car arrived, picked up Mr. Ahmadinejad and whisked him away at high speed from the chaotic scene. American and Iranian officials with knowledge of the operation said the car had been driven by Mossad operatives, who took Mr. Ahmadinejad to a secret safe house in Iran.”

Soon after, Ahmadinejad became disillusioned with the plan, left the safe house, and the only time anybody has seen him publicly since then was at Khamenei’s funeral.

Israel’s Savior?

Ahmadinejad is a curious choice to install as a pro-Israel leader. He has been quoted as saying Israel “must vanish from the pages of time” and “Zionists are a cancerous tumor.” He called for a Middle East where there would be “no trace” of a Jewish state in the Holy Land. It was Ahmadinejad’s work under the supreme leader that made Iran’s nuclear program the attention-gripping affair it is today.

Haaretz reported on the same story. The whole plan apparently was devised by Mossad Director David Barnea. Haaretz summarized Barnea’s pitch to the rest of the government: “The ministers learned that Ahmadinejad was under house arrest following a prolonged conflict with the regime’s leadership, after accusing it of corruption. They were told that he had been barred three times from running for president and that his aides had been arrested. The briefing left no room for doubt: The president who had once vowed to wipe Israel off the map had become an opposition figure.”

All of this could be true. That doesn’t mean Ahmadinejad had disavowed his old beliefs. There is no indication that Ahmadinejad has changed his beliefs in Islamic radicalism or end-time theology. He hasn’t been disillusioned with his vision—just the men above him supposed to implement it.

Yet if Israel is going to solve the Iran problem, what other choice does it have?

Iran is home to over 90 million people. Its military, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (irgc), is so entrenched in the system that analysts have compared it to “a state within a state.” Since Khamenei’s death, the irgc has now effectively become the state itself. Its supporters’ zeal has weathered serious crises that would have toppled other regimes. The mountainous terrain has made it intimidating to invade.

Israel knows deep down there is no easy way to stop the Iranian threat. Yet the threat demands some kind of remedy. Propping up somebody like Ahmadinejad to take over is a horrible option. But it may be the least horrible humanly devised option Israel has.

The Solution

In the sixth century b.c., the kingdom of Judah—the State of Israel’s predecessor—was in crisis. The Babylonian empire was ravaging the land in conquest. Many Jews wanted to keep fighting to the end. Some wanted an alliance with Judah’s more powerful neighbor, Egypt. Amid the scene, God sent the Prophet Jeremiah to declare His verdict on such strategies: “Thus says the Lord: ‘Cursed is the man who trusts in man And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, And shall not see when good comes, But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, In a salt land which is not inhabited” (Jeremiah 17:5-6, New King James Version).

The authorities branded Jeremiah a traitor for his message and imprisoned him several times. Yet that didn’t stop Babylon from conquering the whole of Judah, razing Jerusalem’s temple to the ground, and sending the Jews as exiles to Iraq for decades.

Today, the Jewish state again faces an aggressive empire from the other side of the Middle East. In this case, Israel’s government trusted an even more ludicrous choice than its own soldiers: the maniacal former leader of that empire.

“In nations across the world,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in 2024, “radicalism is on the march, problems are proliferating, and many, many people are frustrated and fed up. Maybe you are one of them. There are leaders who offer solutions and give people hope. Let me tell you: You must be careful about where you place your hope. Many of these ‘solutions’ are illusions!”

Where should Israel put its trust? Jeremiah continued: “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, And whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit” (verses 7-8, nkjv).

Judah’s history is full of examples of its leaders, in prayer and repentance, successfully petitioning God to remove imposing danger through miraculous means. The Kushites, Assyrians and others were all mighty empires that crumbled before Judah’s God.

Israelis today seem to put more trust in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than their own God. This is a big reason why Israel can’t find peace today.

This is a lesson the State of Israel should be learning but isn’t. But trusting in God to fight our battles for us isn’t only a lesson for governments. God wants individuals to learn this as well. Mr. Flurry concludes his article: “I challenge you to learn this towering lesson now …. You need God’s direction, His correction and His protection! And God will protect you and cause your life to blossom and bear bountiful fruit—if you learn to trust Him. Receive His word and He reveals the way of life and the way of death, obey Him, and trust in Him.”

To learn more, read Mr. Flurry’s article: “As Civilization Crumbles, Heed This Lesson.”