Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Former president of Iran (2005–13)

• Born: October 28, 1956
• Place of Birth: Garmsar, Iran

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former mayor of Tehran, was elected president of Iran in 2005 and declared reelected in a disputed election in June 2009. He quickly came to symbolize the hard-line fundamentalist government of Iran, in particular by taking a confrontational stance toward the United States and Israel. Ahmadinejad also became the leading spokesman for Iran's insistence on its right to enrich uranium—nominally for use in power plants but widely believed in the West to be part of a plan to develop nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad's outspoken attacks on Israel, combined with Iran's nuclear program, caused Israeli leaders to declare in 2009 that Iran posed an "existential threat," widely interpreted as a threat to attack Iran's nuclear facilities if diplomacy failed to persuade Tehran to close them. In the run-up to the presidential election in June 2009, Ahmadinejad was thought to be vulnerable to a challenge mounted by former prime minister Mir-Hussein Moussavi, a perceived reformer, but on the day after the election, the Iranian interior minister announced that Ahmadinejad had been elected to a second term with 62.6 percent of the vote. Following another tumultuous term, Ahmadinejad stepped down from the presidency in 2013.

Born: October 28, 1956, Garmsar, Iran (near Tehran).

Nationality: Iranian.

Education: PhD, traffic & transport, Tehran University of Science and Technology.

Religious affiliation: Muslim.

Position, Title, or Affiliation: President of Iran.

Activities:

• Member, Revolutionary Guard.
• Provincial governor.
• Mayor of Tehran.
• Elected president, 2005.
• Defied Western demands that Iran not restart its uranium enrichment program, declaring before the UN General Assembly in September 2007 that the issue was "closed."

Last known status: Unable to run for election for a third term, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stepped down as president to make way for the newly elected Hassan Rouhani in August 2013. With increasingly low approval ratings, Ahmadinejad faced threats of impeachment during his second term as well as the growing condemnation of the supreme leader. He left a controversial international impression by the end of his time in office. In the days leading up to his departure, it was reported that he had received permission to establish a new technology university in Tehran. Although he did not step down quietly and rumors surfaced regarding a possible return to politics, Ahmadinejad gave the impression upon leaving that he would return to teaching. However, despite Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, having told him not to, he did eventually register to run for the presidency once more in 2017; the Guardian Council ultimately disqualified him, and his name was not included for candidacy.

Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the presidential election held on June 12, 2009, with 62.6 percent of the vote, widely outdistancing his closest challenger, former prime minister Mir-Hussein Moussavi. That result was widely disputed in popular street protests; but it was supported by Khamenei. Therefore, Ahmadinejad went on to serve a second term.

During his first term in office as president of Iran (2005–9) Ahmadinejad emerged as a major nemesis of the United States by insisting on Iran's right to enrich uranium—nominally to fuel nuclear power plants, but widely perceived to be part of a nuclear weapons program—and by calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map." These two positions, taken together, prompted the prime minister (since March 2009) of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, to describe Iran as an "existential threat" to his country, raising the prospect of an Israeli preemptive military strike on Iran's nuclear processing facilities and the prospect of a much wider war in the region.

Partly as a result of these policies, Ahmadinejad was thought to face a significant challenge when he ran for reelection in June 2009 against three other opponents, one of whom, former prime minister Mir-Hussein Moussavi, was given a strong chance to defeat Ahmadinejad. But when the official results were announced on June 13, 2009, Ahmadinejad was given credit for 62.6 percent of the vote to Moussavi's 34 percent. These results were protested by street protests in Tehran and other cities, but Khamenei, who had supported Ahmadinejad in the election, refused to entertain demands for a re-run of the voting.

During the campaign, Moussavi had particularly criticized Ahmadinejad's foreign policy, marked by a confrontational style and unyielding stand on the issue of continuing Iran's nuclear program. Ahmadinejad's declared victory, and the popular protests, immediately complicated US President Barack Obama's repeated offers to open direct talks with Tehran in an effort to improve relations that had been frozen since the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran by Islamist radicals. During the course of popular protests in the days following the election, Ahmadinejad declared, inter alia, that Obama was essentially the same as his predecessor, while Obama eased toward denouncing the announced reelection of Ahmadinejad as bordering on fraud. The initial bottom line appeared to be a dimming of prospects for some degree of reconciliation after thirty years of hostility between the two countries.

In 2007, Ahmadinejad, in the midst of his first term as president, replaced previous leaders as the face of radical Iranian fundamentalist Shiite rule. He was denounced by the United States for supposedly helping supply anti-American radicals in Iraq with arms and for insisting on continuing to enrich uranium. Invited to speak at Columbia University while visiting New York to address the UN General Assembly, Ahmadinejad was introduced by the university's president as someone who exhibited ''all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator."

Ahmadinejad rose to prominence after being appointed mayor of Tehran in 2003 and being elected president of Iran two years later. The Iranian president quickly came to symbolize the continuing strains between the West and a country that launched the first fundamentalist Islamist regime under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979.

In 2007, Ahmadinejad voiced his country's insistence on its right to develop nuclear power plants—a process that involves enriching uranium and could, as a result, enable Iran to develop atomic weapons.

Ahmadinejad was first elected president on a platform of rolling back some reforms and returning to a stricter fundamentalist Islamic regime. After the initial voting failed to produce one candidate with a majority in 2005, Ahmadinejad won a runoff with 62 percent of the popular vote. He made no secret of his affiliation with Islamic hardliners opposed to the modest reforms championed by his predecessor, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Ahmadinejad also campaigned as a man of the people who lived in a modest home in Tehran. His opponent was much wealthier and lived in a grand mansion. Ahmadinejad's campaign mentioned that he often brought lunch to work to save the city the expense of paying for his meal. He was often portrayed in campaign films dressed in military fatigues while addressing veterans of the Iraqi war.

Ahmadinejad registered to run for president again after President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash in May 2024, but, as in 2017, the Guardian Council disqualified him from the race. During the same year, he survived an attempted assassination attempt.

Early Life

Ahmadinejad is the son of a blacksmith whose family moved to Tehran when he was a young child. He scored high on national university entrance examinations and entered Tehran's University of Science and Technology, where he also received his master's degree and doctorate in transportation and traffic.

During the presidential campaign, questions were raised about Ahmadinejad's role during the Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, including the takeover of the US embassy and holding of fifty-one American hostages for 444 days, from the end of 1979 until January 1981. Ahmadinejad denied participating in the hostage crisis, although some former hostages said they recognized him as one of the hostage takers. Not in question was Ahmadinejad's participation in the Revolutionary Guards, the organization at the forefront of the revolution against the Shah, and the installation of a fundamentalist Islamist regime.

He has also been a member of the Basij militia, young bearded men who ride through the streets on motorcycles, enforcing strict codes of behavior and dress.

During Iran's war against Iraq (1980–88) Ahmadinejad served in the "Special Brigade" of the Revolutionary Guards, an elite unit reputed to participate in undercover operations outside Iran. Rumors, not substantiated, have said he participated in attacks inside the Iraqi city of Kirkuk and covert operations in Europe aimed at Iranian enemies of the Islamist regime in Tehran.

After the Iraq war, Ahmadinejad served in a succession of provincial government posts as well as serving as a cultural advisor to the Ministry of Culture and Education. He taught at Elm-o Sanaat University and was a member of the scientific board of the Civil Engineering College of the University of Science and Technology, from which he had graduated. He was also associated with Ansar-i Hezbollah (Followers of the Party of God), the sometimes violent Islamic vigilante group.

Political Career

In 2003, the Tehran municipal council, dominated by the hard-line Islamic Iran Developers Coalition, appointed Ahmadinejad mayor of Tehran. In that role, Ahmadinejad worked to reverse some of the reforms instituted by his predecessor. In effect, this meant returning to a stricter interpretation of Islamic law, such as closing some fast-food restaurants, requiring municipal male employees to wear beards and long sleeves, and insisting on separate elevators for men and women in city buildings.

Despite his ties to the most conservative factions of the Iranian government, Ahmadinejad was not the preferred candidate of the dominant Islamic Revolution Devotees' Society in the first round of presidential elections in June 2005. In the second round, however, Ahmadinejad was backed by Khamenei. The presidency of Iran (which, despite the title, is not the most senior official post in the country) had been an outpost of reformers pushing back against the ultra-conservative Guardian's Council. Ahmadinejad's election was thus widely viewed as completing the political hold of conservative Islamists over major Iranian institutions—an impression underscored during his inauguration in August 2005 when he was viewed kissing the hand of Supreme Leader Khamenei as a sign of loyalty, the first Iranian president to do so.

Outspoken Policies

From the moment he took office, Ahmadinejad did not hesitate to give voice to policies that have exacerbated relations with the West. He was, for example, quoted as saying that Israel should be "wiped off the map," and repeatedly stated that the Holocaust is a "myth."

Of greatest concern to the West was Ahmadinejad's insistence on reviving Iran's previously suspended program to enrich uranium, nominally for the purpose of developing nuclear power as an alternative to oil. Iran cites a formal letter it sent to the US government in March 2003, offering to participate in talks with the United States that would put "everything on the table" —including its nuclear program. Feeling threatened and vulnerable following the US invasion of neighboring Iraq, Iran requested that the United States release a formal statement repudiating the inclusion of Iran as a member of the "axis of evil," referring to the characterization made by President George W. Bush. The Bush administration refused to consider the possibility of such a statement, and no move toward talks was made, leading Iranian ambassador to the UN Javad Zarif to remark in 2005, "I believe the nuclear issue could have been resolved long ago. "

Ahmadinejad expressed his support for Ukraine after it was invaded by Russia in 2022. He expressed admiration for Ukraine's resistance against Russia. His views were not consistent with the Iranian government, which favored Russia.

In 2023, the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Ahmadinejad for helping to detain several US citizens following a prisoner swap between his country and the United States. The United States accused him of violating Executive Order 14078, which ensures tangible consequences for those involved in taking US citizens as hostages.

Nuclear Confrontation

As Iran's president, Ahmadinejad emerged as the chief public spokesman for Iran's right to develop nuclear power in the light of strong opposition by the Bush administration and the UN Security Council.

Tensions increased in January 2007, when President Bush declared that Iran and Syria were "allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria."

At around the same time, Ahmadinejad embarked in January 2007 on an extended tour of South American and Latin American countries. His first stop was Venezuela, where he met with President Hugo Chavez. The two issued a joint call for a cut in oil production by OPEC. Chavez referred to Ahmadinejad as "a revolutionary and a brother."

In his speech to the General Assembly on September 25, 2007, Ahmadinejad said Iran would ignore any Security Council resolutions designed to force his country to suspend its nuclear program. "I officially announce that in our opinion, the nuclear issue of Iran is now closed and has turned into an ordinary agency matter," he said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Reelection

Officially there was never any question that Ahmadinejad had been reelected in June 2009 by a margin that far exceeded pre-election opinion polls. In the week following the voting and announced outcome, large demonstrations dominated parts of the capital and other cities. Often these demonstrations were attacked by squads of Basij militiamen (Ahmadinejad had once been a Basij member) attacking protesters with truncheons. Over a period of about a week, Khamenei made clear he would admit no challenge to the outcome, even though other senior clerical leaders expressed doubts. In the days of the anti-Ahmadinejad demonstrations the president reelect kept a low profile, emerging after a week to blame Britain for the dissent and to declare that President Obama was just like his predecessor, President George W. Bush, a favorite target of Ahmadinejad. These developments appeared to bode ill for the tentative diplomatic gestures extended by Obama in the weeks before the election. Some published analyses suggested that the disputed election and the unrest that followed would result in a shift in power toward the military and away from the ruling clergy. For his part, Ahmadinejad appeared to have placed supporters in positions of influence to help strengthen his position.

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