When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the podium at the United Nations General Assembly for the second time as Iran’s president, on Sept. 19, 2006, he was the very embodiment of a firebrand politician. “The pretexts for the creation of the regime occupying Al-Quds Al-Sharif [Jerusalem] are so weak that its proponents want to silence any voice trying to merely speak about them, as they are concerned that shedding light on the facts would undermine the raison d’etre of this regime, as it has,” he said.
A year earlier, he had sponsored what was dubbed the World Without Zionism conference, which even then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan denounced, despite his long-standing interest in the pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran. On Oct. 26, 2005, Ahmadinejad appeared at the auditorium in Tehran where the conference was being hosted. “Many who are disappointed in the struggle between the Islamic world and the infidels have tried to spread the blame. They say it is not possible to have a world without the United States and Zionism. But you know that this is a possible goal and slogan,” he told a group of students in attendance.
Russia, which Ahmadinejad always believed he had courted as a reliable ally, was outraged. His dramatic gestures were unappealing to almost every major global actor. One day after the event, Russia’s Foreign Ministry summoned Iran’s ambassador to warn against the “propagandist rhetoric” coming from Tehran, which it said didn’t help with the resolution of the “tense situation evolving around Iran’s nuclear program.”
Once the Islamic Republic’s most combative face on the world stage, Ahmadinejad built a political persona based on incendiary anti-Israel rhetoric that alienated allies and deepened Iran’s isolation. Yet since the country’s first direct war with Israel, the former president has kept an uncharacteristic silence — surfacing only for cryptic domestic appearances and opaque foreign trips, including a low-profile visit to staunchly pro-Israel Hungary. His reticence has stirred speculation among Iranians and observers alike about whether the onetime firebrand has mellowed, recalibrated his loyalties, or is engaged in political maneuvers away from public view.
The hard-line politician, whose disparaging of Israel often veered into antisemitism, has been silent in the months since Israel’s recent 12-day war against Iran. His latest activity, coming on the heels of a long withdrawal from public view, was a meeting with members of the provincial committees of the “Toward Spring Movement” in Tehran on July 10. A self-styled sociopolitical grassroots movement, Toward Spring carries a coded reference to the 12th Shiite imam, the eschatological Mahdi, whom Ahmadinejad has often associated himself with, and whom he has described as the “spring of humanity.”
During the five-hour event, as reported by Telegram channels close to his inner circle, Ahmadinejad listened to “experts” and “political elites” speak for nearly four hours and delivered some brief concluding remarks. It appears that no mention was made of the war with Israel.
At the height of the conflict, rumors circulated that an airstrike had killed Ahmadinejad. His press office denied the reports immediately. But the fact that he decided to lay low during a war that inevitably conjured his name did not go unnoticed. Social media users bickered over the reasons why the man credited with dragging Iran into extended isolation, due in part to his inflammatory rhetoric, had ignored his country’s first experience with active warfare since 1988.
Ahmadinejad’s only reaction to the flare-up was a dispassionate, laconic message he issued on June 13, after Israel’s operations began with the targeting of the top figures of the Islamic Republic. Not many civilians had yet been killed, and the airstrikes hadn’t pummeled cities nationwide. He extended condolences to the families of the commanders and nuclear scientists and then went quiet, leaving many Iranians wondering why he had suddenly become so lenient toward his archenemy.
Jamaran, a news website close to the household of the late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, called Ahmadinejad’s in-crowd “a cult,” questioning the sincerity of his perfunctory note on the eve of the war. It found fault with the ex-president for refusing to use words such as “aggression” or “violation” to describe Israel’s campaign, lamenting that he settled on a neutral term like “attacks.” It also reminded readers of “a succession of international troubles” that Iran endured because of his anti-Israel oratory when in office.
Ahmadinejad’s zealous fans didn’t appear to be bothered by him looking the other way while Israel’s bombing of Iranian cities continued. Instead, they shifted the blame to former President Hassan Rouhani and his foreign minister, Javad Zarif, for negotiating the 2015 nuclear deal, which they said projected an image of Iran’s vulnerability.
Other Ahmadinejad loyalists resorted to literary devices on social media to rationalize his taciturnity, including one X user suggesting that he has “sought refuge in silence” because there is no listening ear for his “words of truth.” The skeptics recalled remarks made in 2009, after the eruption of Iran’s Green Movement, by the former chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency Meir Dagan, who argued in the Knesset that the reformist presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi wasn’t an easy foe to explain to the world, while someone like Ahmadinejad at the helm would be good for Israel.
Even all these years later, the memory of Ahmadinejad lingered over the unprecedented recent hostilities. While it’s true that the man himself wasn’t delivering speeches, giving interviews or posting on social media in reaction to the war, it’s unlikely that his silence was a sign that he recognized the costs of his own belligerence.
The split between Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his favorite president is one of the dramas of recent Iranian history that has never been fully unlocked. Khamenei stood up to the most seasoned politicians of the republic, including his confidants, to vouch for Ahmadinejad, mostly because the maverick was so impetuous in his verbal attacks against Israel, and the theocratic leader appreciated this recklessness. Eventually, though, they had a bitter falling out.
In December 2006, two months after the maelstrom he kicked up at the U.N., Ahmadinejad opened the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran. Some of the guests included David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan; Robert Faurisson, a French academic who was convicted five times for denying the Holocaust; and the Australian-British former model Michèle Renouf. All were excited to be in Tehran, showering Ahmadinejad with praise.
“His initial declaration that Israel must be wiped off the map, even if clumsily or incorrectly translated from Persian, came as a surprise and somewhat of a shock,” said Hooman Majd, a writer and journalist who was asked by the Ahmadinejad delegation to help with the English delivery of his 2006 and 2007 U.N. speeches.
“I would argue that it is highly unusual for anyone who is or has been in the Islamic Republic leadership to be relatively quiet when any country attacks the homeland, let alone Israel, and especially for the fiery Ahmadinejad,” said Majd, whose new book “Minister Without Portfolio: Memoir of a Reluctant Exile” is scheduled for release in September.
When Ahmadinejad visited Switzerland 16 years ago to give a speech at a U.N. summit on racism known as the Durban Review Conference, he was the only head of state to take part. His speech on April 20, 2009, prompted a mass walkout by delegates from 40 countries. Ahead of the event, he met the Swiss president, Hans-Rudolph Merz, precipitating a rare fracas between Israel and Switzerland. It was the only time he conferred with a European leader in the host country.
At his address, which was briefly disrupted by protesters from a French student union, Ahmadinejad described Israel as “the most aggressive, racist country” and claimed that it had also played a role in the invasion of Iraq. “Global Zionism is the complete symbol of racism, which with unreal reliance on religion has tried to misuse the religious beliefs of some unaware people and hide its ugly face,” he said. The U.N. described his comments as incitement to hatred.
Ahmadinejad lives in Tehran’s iconic Narmak neighborhood, where he maintains a workspace hosting some of his meetings. He also receives members of the public, mostly his ardent supporters. He sends out recommendation notes to his allies in government bodies on behalf of those seeking jobs or applying for loans. And he meets reporters from time to time. Still, there has not been much scrutiny of the unusual details of one of his recent overseas trips.
On June 3, Ahmadinejad arrived in Budapest to visit the Ludovika University of Public Service (NKE). The university is an ideological bastion of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and its advisory board is chaired by Balázs Orbán, the premier’s political director. Ahmadinejad’s fan pages said he was scheduled to address an event titled “Sustainability in a Changing World,” although no mention of any conference featuring him could be found on the university website. Students hadn’t seen flyers about it either.
A current or former president touring a college campus normally captures the attention of the entire community, often followed by extensive media coverage. Ahmadinejad came and went without notice, and even his tech-savvy press team didn’t flood the internet with visuals and information about his rare trip.
As the head of government, Ahmadinejad had only traveled to three European countries, excluding Belarus. He had visited Denmark, Italy and Switzerland to participate in U.N. conferences, and none of these were state or official visits. The Danish and Italian leaders refused to meet him in their capitals, and he remained a literal persona non grata across the European Union.
In April, two months ahead of Ahmadinejad’s trip, NKE hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, awarding him an honorary doctorate. Netanyahu gave a speech about the importance of education in leadership, and the university rector, Gergely Deli, praised him as a “prominent figure in world politics” showing “remarkable leadership.”
On the day Netanyahu arrived in Budapest, Orbán announced his country’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. Despite breaching Hungary’s commitments under the terms of its EU membership, the decision gave a legal sheen to the visit by Netanyahu, who is facing an arrest warrant from the court, while exempting Hungary from handing him over.
Lili Takács, a journalist with the news website 444.hu, explained that pro-Israel sentiments galvanizing the ruling Fidesz Party are so extreme that the Orbán regime has blocked some joint EU statements on Gaza because they emphasized the importance of a ceasefire.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided that any official documentation about Ahmadinejad’s visit will remain secret for decades, so no official information can be obtained in the foreseeable future,” she told New Lines. Still, “there are some videos that show that he received a state reception with a certain level of protection at the airport upon his arrival.”
Kinga Göncz, the former foreign minister of Hungary between 2006 and 2009, told me Ahmadinejad’s visit was something beyond a campus presentation: “The cover story of his visit was a university lecture. He didn’t meet any Hungarian politicians in Budapest, but had a meeting until early morning with someone.”
“Based on the guesses, Budapest just gave a venue for a secret meeting on an Israeli-Iranian issue, with the approval of the Israeli government, although the Israeli Embassy officially firmly disapproved of his invitation,” said Göncz, who also served as a member of the European Parliament before stepping down in 2014.
Ahmadinejad’s plane touched down back in Tehran on June 7. Six days later, Israel declared war on Iran. Obviously, no definitive link can be drawn between these occurrences, though it may be simplistic not to question whether they were mere coincidences — all the more so because rumors about furtive ties between Ahmadinejad’s inner circle and Israel have continued to animate debates about his activities.
Scandals involving people in Ahmadinejad’s clique or linked to his administration being apprehended over selling out national secrets to Israel have been surfacing with increasing frequency since he stepped down as president. In one instance, Mohammad Hossein Rostami and Reza Golpour were arrested by the judiciary in 2017 for allegedly spying for Israel.
A member of the Basij militia, the paramilitary volunteer force that forms part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Rostami had founded a political and religious news website called Ammaryoun, which promoted Ahmadinejad as a deified savior of the Islamic Republic. He had previously worked with Ahmadinejad’s presidential campaign. He then went to Syria as a combatant affiliated with the IRGC, fighting to save the regime of Bashar al-Assad. It was there that he reportedly initiated his work with Israeli intelligence.
His friend Golpour, a writer and a former contributor to the newspaper Kayhan, whose managing director serves as a de facto representative of the supreme leader, was also arrested in 2017 for similar charges. He was a vocal advocate of Ahmadinejad, with family ties to some of his deputies and multiple IRGC commanders. Rostami and Golpour were both arrested, served time in prison and were later released.
Hungary wasn’t Ahmadinejad’s only unlikely destination. In 2023, he had gone on a similarly low-profile trip to Guatemala to speak at a summit about the environment and the conservation of the Motagua River. Again, the topic was unrelated to his work, and the Spanish-speaking media paid no attention, despite the counterintuitiveness of a stubborn detractor of Israel visiting one of Central America’s most pro-Israel states. Guatemala was the second country to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem after the U.S. did so in 2017 under the first Donald Trump administration.
Guatemala’s then-Minister of Environment Gerson Barrios Garrido had invited Ahmadinejad in a letter that addressed him as the “former president of the Republic of Iran.” Ahead of his departure, authorities at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport confiscated his passport and denied him and his entourage boarding, citing security concerns. He persisted, staged a sit-in, and became a spectacle when the transiting passengers stopped by to take selfies with the former president.
After almost seven hours, he was permitted to depart. He was on the plane on Oct. 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing an estimated 1,200 Israelis. On May 6, 2024, the day Israel began the Rafah offensive, he visited Hungary for the first time, heading to the Ludovika University for an unadvertised speech about “common values in a shared global environment.” Nine days after his flight home, former President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash. It’s unclear why Ahmadinejad undertook these trips, and the uncanny coincidences of his travel dates with major Israeli offensives do not prove anything. But it raises questions about how Israel’s primary antagonist in Iran handled himself in the wake of outright conflict with his archnemesis.
Ahmadinejad’s June trip to Budapest generated some interest domestically. But his office engineered the publicity so that nothing leaked out other than a few pictures and phone-recorded videos of his session with Deli and his colleagues, including László Csicsmann, a Corvinus University of Budapest professor who was in Tehran in May to extend the invitation to Ahmadinejad.
“It is certain that Orbán knew about it and gave the green light to this visit,” said Márton Tompos, a member of the National Assembly of Hungary. He added that anyone familiar with Hungarian politics would understand that it would be impossible to organize such a meeting without Orbán’s approval.
Tompos, a member of the Momentum Movement, told New Lines there are multiple factors that make the visit unusual, including the strongly pro-Israel slant of the Orbán government, which means the trip was probably discussed with Netanyahu beforehand.
“Secondly, Ahmadinejad used the government lounge at the airport in Budapest, therefore his visit was certainly known and organized by the government. The place where he supposedly held a lecture is under the protection of the military secret service,” Tompos said.
Ahmadinejad’s metamorphosis – from a fanatic who said Israel’s existence was “an insult to all nations” and that its elimination would usher in a new Middle East “in which, with God’s grace and the assistance of nations, there won’t be a trace of America and the Zionists” into a supposedly sober-minded critic of the status quo – is enigmatic.
When in power, the amount of time Ahmadinejad dedicated to lambasting Israel in his speeches and interviews often left everyone wondering if he also had things to say about his own country and its culture, vision and ideals. Israel’s deadly attacks, resulting in more than 1,000 casualties, could have provided him with an opportunity to go on a media rampage to pillory Israel and be catapulted into the headlines again. He didn’t go down that route.
“The Israeli onslaught on Iran and particularly its control of Iran’s airspace may be a difficult pill to swallow for Ahmadinejad, particularly after having forcefully advocated wiping Israel off the map during his years in office,” said Kasra Naji, a senior BBC Persian correspondent and author of the 2007 book “Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader.”
“It is difficult to guess what is going on in his head about this. In the past several years, he has been taking on an antiestablishment persona, so he may want to criticize the supreme leader for having put the country on a ruinous collision course with Israel and the U.S.,” Naji said.
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