Iran International
A New York Times report claiming former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was considered by some US officials for a post-war role in Iran triggered a storm of speculation, ridicule and conspiracy theories inside Iran.
The report alleged that during the opening days of Israeli and US attacks on Iran, discussions took place in Washington about whether Ahmadinejad could help manage a political transition after the collapse of the Islamic Republic’s leadership and the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
But many Iranian commentators quickly questioned both the credibility of the report and the assumptions behind it.
Conservative journalist Parisa Nasr described the story as “weak and flimsy” in a post on X, arguing that circulating such narratives under current conditions risked contributing to “wartime psychological operations.”
Security analyst Majid Rajabi also challenged the report’s premise, noting that Ahmadinejad had spent recent years openly criticizing official policies and meeting supporters publicly, making claims that he had effectively been under tight restrictions difficult to reconcile.
The reaction soon expanded beyond skepticism over the report itself.
Online users across Iran’s political spectrum revived longstanding accusations that Ahmadinejad’s presidency and rhetoric had ultimately served Israeli interests. Some mockingly referred to him as “Iran’s Eli Cohen”while others demanded investigations into his past conduct and political ties.
One widely circulated post argued that if the report were true, Ahmadinejad would represent “a super-spy unlike anything in human history,” noting that he had served eight years as president while later remaining a member of the Expediency Discernment Council.
Online speculation also revived scrutiny of Ahmadinejad’s unusual foreign trips in recent years, particularly visits to Guatemala and Hungary that some commentators retrospectively framed as politically suspicious after the New York Times report.
An editorial in Asr-e Iran argued that Ahmadinejad’s insistence on traveling to countries viewed as close to Israel had “raised many questions among the Iranian public,” especially given his former image as one of Iran’s most hardline anti-Israel presidents.
Former Ahmadinejad adviser Abdolreza Davari—now a vocal critic—argued that many of Ahmadinejad’s statements during his presidency benefited Israel’s far right by portraying Iran as radical and extreme.
“Ahmadinejad said things that the Israeli far right needed,” Davari said. “Things that could present Iran as radical and extreme and strengthen the project of Iranophobia.”
But Davari also cautioned against drawing definitive conclusions about covert ties. “Whether there was truly an organic convergence or not, I honestly do not know,” he said.
According to the New York Times report, some US officials believed Ahmadinejad—despite years of anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric—still retained influence within parts of Iran’s security and military establishment and could play what they viewed as a stabilizing role during a period of turmoil.
At the time, US President Donald Trump had publicly suggested that perhaps “someone from inside Iran” should govern the country after the conflict. Speculation had largely centered on figures such as former president Hassan Rouhani, former security chief Ali Larijani or parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
The report further alleged that Ahmadinejad was aware of the proposal but changed his position after being injured in an attack during the first day of the war.
Neither Ahmadinejad nor his close associates have commented publicly.
Reinvention and political survival
Ahmadinejad’s relationship with Khamenei deteriorated sharply during his second presidential term, most notably during a 2011 dispute over intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi, whom Khamenei publicly reinstated after Ahmadinejad attempted to remove him.
The episode exposed the limits of Ahmadinejad’s authority and marked the beginning of his gradual marginalization within the establishment.
State media reportedly restricted coverage related to him, and despite explicit opposition from Khamenei, Ahmadinejad repeatedly attempted to return to the presidency only to be disqualified each time.
Yet unlike former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, he was never fully pushed out of the system and remained a member of the Expediency Discernment Council.
In recent years, Ahmadinejad and his allies have sought to recast him as an independent nationalist politician and critic of the establishment rather than the confrontational populist associated with his presidency.
He has largely abandoned the anti-Western rhetoric that defined his years in office, focusing instead on economic grievances, governance failures and criticism of mandatory hijab policies.
Reformist commentator Ahmad Zeidabadi wrote that Ahmadinejad had changed his positions on “almost every important issue” over the past two decades and was “no longer the same person” he had once been.
“He has long remained silent—or been forced into silence,” Zeidabadi wrote, “but even the occasional hints and meanings between the lines of his statements clearly show his growing distance from the Ahmadinejad of the past.”
Some Iranian outlets argued that despite lingering anger over the economic legacy of his presidency, Ahmadinejad still appears to retain support in parts of the lower-income electorate and in smaller cities.
Ahmadinejad has not appeared publicly since the war began. His office near his residence was reportedly targeted during the conflict, killing three IRGC protection officers.
Apart from several brief written statements, including condolences following Khamenei’s death and congratulations to Mojtaba Khamenei after his selection as supreme leader, he has remained largely absent from public view.
The reaction to the New York Times report nevertheless highlighted a broader reality inside Iran: more than a decade after leaving office, Ahmadinejad remains one of the few former insiders capable of provoking suspicion, fascination and hostility across nearly every political faction.
Iran’s streets and comment sections increasingly project the same official mood: unity, defiance and loyalty. Nighttime rallies supply the images – flags, portraits, organized crowds. Online, many Iran-related posts draw a parallel chorus of praise for the Islamic Republic, celebration of its military posture and attacks on critics, often alongside tributes to slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his still-unseen successor, Mojtaba Khamenei.
What the screen does not show is the pool of people removed before the argument even begins.
As Iran’s internet blackout pushes deeper into its third month, the question is no longer only what people are saying online.
It is who still has the connection, the permission, the protection or the incentive to say it.
The latest crisis did not begin with one switch. During the January uprising, internet access was cut on January 8 and remained fully restricted until January 28. After US-Israeli strikes began on February 28, authorities imposed a new shutdown that has now moved toward its third month.
A normal comment section, however flawed, allows some collision between competing voices. A blackout changes the sample.
Many ordinary users are pushed onto restricted domestic services. Others ration expensive workarounds. Some businesses cannot reach customers. Students lose access to material. Families abroad struggle to maintain daily contact. At the same time, state-aligned users, approved institutions and privileged accounts remain visible on global platforms.
The asymmetry has not been hidden. In March, Iran’s government said it was providing special internet access to select users capable of promoting its messaging online. A government spokeswoman did not use the term “white SIM cards,” but said connectivity was being offered to “those who can better deliver the message.”
That is the controlled sample: not a country speaking freely, but a narrower population still able to speak outward.
The most revealing development is not only who receives access. It is what some people are asked to do to regain it.
Some Iranians whose SIM cards or internet access had been blocked over alleged online activity against the Islamic Republic said they were told to submit handwritten pledges, provide guarantors and publish pro-government content to restore access.
The notices asked for home and work addresses, bank account information, images of bank cards and links to social media accounts. They also instructed recipients not to publish content deemed harmful to the country’s “psychological, social or political security.”
Some were told to publish at least 20 posts supporting the Islamic Republic and send screenshots as proof.
The posts were not to be uploaded all at once. They had to be spaced out so the activity would appear natural.
Others were ordered to attend nighttime government rallies, photograph themselves carrying flags or images of the Supreme Leader, and provide identification documents from guarantors who would accept responsibility for any future “criminal activity.”
The detail about timing is small, but it carries the whole design. The aim is not merely loyalty. It is loyalty made to look organic.
This is where the street and the screen meet. Organized rallies produce images of public unity. Selective internet access and coerced posting can carry the same choreography into comment sections, reply chains and social platforms.
The state does not need every supportive post to be fake. It needs a system in which supportive voices are easier to see, dissenting voices are harder to hear, and some frightened users learn that getting back online may require a public performance of loyalty.
Iran’s internet is no longer simply available or unavailable. It has been sorted.
At the top are so-called white SIM cards, widely understood as privileged lines that allow largely unrestricted access for trusted insiders and state-aligned users. Below them are paid and limited services such as “Internet Pro,” presented by officials as a business necessity but described by many Iranians as a class-based system of digital inequality.
Reporting on material circulating among users described a four-level structure: white SIM cards, paid Internet Pro, costly VPN access and, for the majority, a restricted domestic network.
The economic filter is severe. Average monthly income in Iran is at around $100 to $200, while the minimum wage is typically below $100. Even official Internet Pro packages and VPN routes can be unaffordable, and black-market access has reportedly pushed prices far higher.
Access also carries political exposure. For those who can afford a connection, the risk is not only cost but traceability. A user may be able to post, but with the knowledge that the same system can block a SIM card, summon a guarantor, demand a pledge or turn an online comment into a legal file.
Iranian state-linked online influence operations long predate the current blackout. Microsoft has reported that Iranian cyber-enabled influence activity has been a consistent feature of at least the last three US election cycles.
In January, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies identified what it described as a likely regime-linked influence operation on X during protests, using coordinated accounts to delegitimize dissent, intimidate protesters and reinforce official narratives.
The report said the network included at least 289 accounts posting identical Persian-language content, with behavior suggesting a hybrid of automation and human operation.
But the current phase adds a more intimate layer. Foreign influence operations impersonate a public from a distance. Domestic coercion can pressure the public itself.
The old shorthand of “bots” misses the range of actors now shaping the visible online picture: automated accounts, organized cyber operators, loyalists with privileged access, state-linked media networks, paid voices, and users pushed to perform approval to recover ordinary tools of daily life.
The missing side of Iran’s online debate is not abstract.
It is the online seller without customers, the student without class materials, the programmer without contracts, the family unable to make a routine call abroad, and the person with disabilities cut off from services or communities that made daily life more manageable.
Against that background, pro-government comment floods do not prove a national mood. They show that some people still have access, some have protection, some have instructions, and many others have been priced out, cut off or made cautious by fear.
There are genuine supporters of the Islamic Republic. But a system that restricts millions, grants selective access, monitors users, blocks SIM cards and tells some people to space out loyalty posts cannot produce a clean reading of public opinion.
When a government cuts off the people and leaves the microphone to loyalists, the comment section stops being a public square.
It becomes part of the stage.
The real story is not only in the roar under the post. It is in the conditions that made so many others unable to answer back – and in the citizens told that to return to the internet, they must first praise the power that cut them off.
