Iran's former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is back, at least in the headlines - analysis

What has raised some eyebrows is the fact that Ahmadinejad was seen as an implacable foe of Israel, a key supporter of the nuclear program, and also a pusher of Holocaust denial. Why would anyone tap what seems like a far-right nationalist populist figure to run Iran? Some have argued that this was the Maduro scenario again, removing a foe of the US and bringing in someone who could do a deal. The question is whether Ahmadinejad was that type?

Let’s assume for a moment that the report is even partially accurate. This requires us to understand who Ahmadinejad is today and who he was. Ahmadinejad was born in 1956 in a village about a two-hour drive southeast of Tehran in Semnan province. He was from a pious and poor family that soon moved to Tehran. An exemplary student, he went to the Iranian University of Science and Technology in Tehran and studied engineering in the 1970s. After the Iranian Revolution, he began to play a political role and served in political positions in northwestern Iranian provinces, which are Kurdish- and Azeri-majority areas. He became mayor of Tehran in 2003. He was seen as a natural opponent to Iran’s reform-minded President Mohammad Khatami.

Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005 in an election against Akbar Rafsanjani. Ahmadinejad won votes in central Iran, whereas Rafsanjani performed better in peripheral, minority-populated areas. Radio Free Europe noted, when Khatami left office, that “The tenure of Iran's pro-reform President Mohammad Khatami ended today as his successor Mahmud Ahmadinejad was formally installed as president. Khatami came to power in 1997 with huge support, especially among youth and women, to whom he had promised more rights. In 2001, he was re-elected with some 70 percent of the vote. However, many of his one-time supporters have criticized Khatami for failing to deliver on his promises. Other observers, though, say that during Khatami's eight-year tenure, some positive changes took place.”

The year 2005 was a key time for Iran in the region. The US had invaded Iran after 9/11 and then invaded Iraq in 2003, essentially putting US forces on two fronts with Iran. The Iranian leader sent US President George W. Bush a letter in 2006. During a press conference with then-United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House in May 2006, Bush said, "Well, I read the letter of the President, and I thought it was interesting. It was, like, 16 or 17 single-spaced typed pages of -- but he didn't address the issue of whether or not they're going to continue to press for a nuclear weapon. That's the issue at hand."

It was clear that the Iranian nuclear issue was a key challenge for the Bush administration. Meanwhile, the US was doing the “surge” in Iraq. Iran was threatening US troops in Iraq as well, with the use of special explosive devices called EFPs. By 2008, the US military would see a forty percent rise in the use of these deadly weapons that were linked to Iran.

As such, Ahmadinejad’s speech was watched closely. “The speech can be credited with expediting the Bush administration’s effort to prompt action by the UN Security Council against Iran’s nuclear program, and with drawing new derision within Iran over Ahmadinejad’s claims of divine intervention during the speech itself.” The Iranian leader alienated the US and the West. The nuclear program wasn’t the only thing. He also engaged in questioning the Holocaust or denying it. He told NPR in 2009 that accounts by survivors of the Shoah were the “opinion” of “just a few.” He also compared the Holocaust to Israel’s policies. "I can see that genocide is happening now under the pretext of an event that happened 60 years ago…Why should the Palestinian people make up for it?"

His speeches at the UN led to more scrutiny and harmed Iran’s image. Brookings, in a piece about Ahmadinejad leaving office, noted that his last speech at the UN in 2012 was “replete with disjointed philosophical musings over the failings of the international system and the inequities of capitalism, but it contained little of the provocation that has brought the Iranian president such renown.” By this time, Ahmadinejad had lost his clout among Iran's religious clerics. He had once been tapped by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to run a more centralized, robust presidency.

Now he was weaker. “Ahmadinejad eventually overstepped, and like each of his predecessors, his personal ambitions proved no match for a system constructed to ensure its own preservation and the unchallenged prerogative of the supreme leader. For the past 18 months, Ahmadinejad has been increasingly marginalized within the Islamic Republic, reduced to playing a convenient foil for intra-elite skirmishing while Khamenei toys with the notion of simply eliminating the presidency altogether,” Brookings noted. By 2013, he was out of office. It was a changed world at this time. US President Barack Obama wanted to do outreach to Iran. They were already pivoting, and appeasement of Russia and Iran would be key to US policy to reach a deal with Tehran. Ahmadinejad was not helpful in this.

By this time, the Iranian leader had become a kind of fetish and foil in the US. He was invited to speak at Columbia University. Some Americans wanted to meet the Iranian leader. He was seen as so bad, he must be good, was the logic. US comedy skits mocked the Iranian, with one portraying him as gay. Apparently, the theory was that if his conservative views were mocked, this would de-fang him.

His post-presidency has been more interesting. He was supposed to retire from politics and return to academia. An outwardly modest man, he hadn’t appeared to profit much from his career. But he continued to dabble in politics in 2017 and 2020, seeking the limelight. This must have chaffed the regime because he was briefly arrested in 2018 for “inciting unrest.” He became popular on social media, taking up various causes, including backing Black Lives Matter in the US. He also commented on US sports. “When I was a student, I played two sports on the collegiate level: soccer and field hockey. I know the special feeling these young men have, and I congratulate them and their families on this achievement,” he wrote in 2019 when the University of Virginia became National Champions. He commented on the NFL and the University of Michigan. He even replied to comments about US sports. The entire odyssey of the former Iranian hardliner took many by surprise.