Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad holds a press conference after registering as a candidate for Iran’s 2021 presidential elections on May 12, 2021, in Tehran. Photo: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images
The bombshell New York Times report that the U.S. and Israel hoped to install former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the leader of Iran puts the lie to so much of what hawks in the West have been trying to sell their publics about the Iran war.
Despite claims by President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Iran war was never about freedom for the Iranian people.
That much is obvious thanks to Ahmadinejad’s role in recent Iranian history: In 2009, Iranians rose up against a stolen election in what was known as the Green Movement, which was violently crushed by Iran’s security forces to keep Ahmadinejad in power.
Though a populist, Ahmadinejad at the time dismissed the protests as nothing more than the result of “emotions after a soccer match” or, in another instance, “dirt and dust.” These are not the bona fides of a leader who will lead Iran into democracy.
