Where on Earth Is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

The once fiery Iranian president, who built his reputation on anti-Israel vitriol, has been quiet despite the countries’ recent war — and his discreet trips abroad are attracting questions

Kourosh Ziabari
Kourosh Ziabari is an award-winning journalist based in New York

August 14, 2025

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19 min

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.
https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/where-on-earth-is-mahmoud-ahmadinejad/

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