How Turkey Smashed a Secret US-Israeli Plot to Topple Iranian Regime

In a revealing new interview with the American network PBC, Major General (Res.) Tamir Hayman, former head of the Intelligence Directorate who served in a senior position during "Operation Lion's Roar", disclosed that Jerusalem and Washington previously evaluated a concrete plan to orchestrate a regime change in Iran by utilizing former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Hayman validated earlier reporting by The New York Times, which revealed that diplomats and intelligence officials had drafted a strategy positioning Ahmadinejad as a central figure in a coordinated effort to replace the Iranian leadership.

The initial reports raised widespread questions across the international community, given Ahmadinejad's history as one of the most hardline anti-Israel leaders in modern Iranian history, characterized by severe antisemitic rhetoric and public Holocaust denial.

According to Hayman, the inclusion of the controversial former Iranian president was part of a broader, interconnected operational framework. He noted that Ahmadinejad was tied to a sequence of highly unique special operations, most of which remain classified with the exception of the planned Kurdish incursion.

The success of the overarching strategy depended on a precise sequence of events. The pivotal phase relied on a Kurdish mobilization designed to fundamentally shift the regional balance of power. When questioned about why the operation was ultimately aborted, Hayman pointed directly to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The climax of the operational sequence was designed to initiate with the Kurdish vanguard. However, Erdogan viewed the Kurdish forces as a severe strategic threat to Turkey's domestic stability. Turkish leadership successfully convinced Trump that backing the Kurds and potentially facilitating a Kurdish state ran directly counter to Turkish national interests. Hayman assessed that this specific geopolitical friction was the primary catalyst behind Trump's decision to cancel the operation.

Hayman also addressed the broader context of the confrontation with Tehran, dismissing persistent narratives that Israel aggressively pushed the United States into direct military action against Iran.

Instead, Hayman cited a previous US operation in Venezuela against Nicolas Maduro as the source of the administration's heightened operational confidence. This led Trump to unexpectedly tweet that assistance was on the way to anti-regime protestors in Iran, a move that caught Israeli defense officials completely by surprise.

Contrary to the perception that Israel drove the escalation, Hayman emphasized that the White House acted independently.

Israeli intelligence had not planned for a strike at the start of January, and the sudden American willingness to attack Iran forced a rapid reassessment, ultimately leading to the subsequent Israeli planning and joint motivation that culminated later that February.