From New Lines Magazine
The former Iranian president’s relationship with Mohammad Ali Ramin sheds light on his personality and transformations, and the path that may have led him to a secret deal with Israel
When he stepped down as the president of Iran in 2013, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ceased to be a one-man news cycle, but he didn’t leave his controversial brand of politics behind. Still, few could have predicted the events involving the mercurial president in recent months.
In May, The New York Times published the outline of what appears to be a plan by Israeli intelligence to cultivate Ahmadinejad to lead Iran in the aftermath of the U.S.-Israeli war that started with surprise attacks on Iranian cities on Feb. 28. On July 13, Haaretz released more details of the astonishing scheme, codenamed Operation Puss in Boots, which it claimed had been personally approved by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
After New Lines’ reporting last August that first examined the details of Ahmadinejad’s curious trips to Guatemala and Hungary after leaving office, The New York Times found out that the former Iranian president had met the then-director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea, in Budapest, where he traveled twice in 2024 and 2025 under the guise of academic conferences that never happened.
Kourosh Ziabari is an award-winning journalist based in New York.
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