Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held the first cabinet meeting of his presidency inside the Imam Reza shrine in the city of Mashhad. The date was the 25th of August 2005, and four chairs at the table stood empty. They had been set aside for ministers whom parliament had refused to approve. Ahmadinejad would remain Iran's president until 2013. During those years he became one of the most polarizing leaders on earth. Foreign governments condemned his speeches, and many Iranians turned against his economic record. Even the clerical establishment that had lifted him up came to treat him as a problem. His story raises three questions. How did the son of a village grocer end up at that table? What did he do with the power it gave him? And why did he keep trying to return to the ballot long after his term had ended?
In the village of Aradan, near Garmsar in Semnan province, a boy was born on the 28th of October 1956. His father, Ahmad, worked as a grocer and a barber and taught the Quran. His mother, Khanom, was a Sayyida, a title given to people believed to descend from the Prophet Muhammad.
The family left for Tehran when the boy was one year old. In 1960 his father swapped their surname, Saborjhian or Sabbaghian, for Ahmadinejad. The old name referred to thread-painters, a trade once common in the carpet industry of Semnan. The new one combines the father's name with a word meaning race, so it reads roughly as the lineage of Ahmad. Relatives later said the change was meant to shield the family from discrimination in the capital.
The same relatives described a father who sold the family house in Tehran and bought a smaller one. He gave the leftover money to charity and to poor people.
In 1976 Ahmadinejad sat the national university entrance examination. His autobiography says he placed 132nd among 400,000 candidates. He enrolled in civil engineering at the Iran University of Science and Technology. He returned to the same institution for a master's program in 1986, joined its faculty as a lecturer in 1989, and earned a doctorate in 1997. The subject was transportation engineering and planning.
His intellectual world was shaped by three writers and thinkers: Navvab Safavi, Jalal Al-e-Ahmad and Ahmad Fardid. Later he named the cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi of Qom as his ideological and spiritual mentor. Mesbah founded the Haghani School of thought.
Much of the 1980s is a blank. Reports say he held various administrative posts in West Azerbaijan. Many accounts place him in the Revolutionary Guard's intelligence and security apparatus after Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Iran. His adviser Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi rejects that, saying Ahmadinejad was never an official member and served as a volunteer of the Basij kind. The question has never been settled in the source record.
After the revolution, Ahmadinejad joined the Office for Strengthening Unity. Its job was to keep students from sympathizing with the militant Mojahedin-e Khalq. That was the start of a political career built almost entirely on appointments.
He governed the districts of Maku and Khoy in West Azarbaijan without ever facing voters. He then advised the governor general of Kurdistan Province for two years. In 1993 he became governor general of Ardabil, a newly formed province. President Mohammad Khatami removed him in 1997, along with every other provincial governor, and Ahmadinejad went back to teaching.
The 2003 election for Tehran's city council brought conservatives from the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran into the council chamber. The council made him mayor. He reversed the work of earlier moderate and reformist mayors. He gave the cultural centres they had founded a religious emphasis, and he publicized separate elevators for men and women in municipal offices. He also proposed burying people killed in the Iran-Iraq War in the major squares of Tehran. Not all of it was ideology. He worked on the traffic system and handed out free soup to the poor.
He resigned on the 28th of June 2005. In that same year he was one of 65 finalists for World Mayor, picked from 550 nominees, only nine of them from Asia. His resignation made him ineligible to advance.
When the presidential campaign began, almost nobody knew his name outside Tehran. His backing came from the Alliance of Builders and from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whom some observers saw as his patron. His slogan was "It's possible and we can do it". He kept his plans vague, which let religious conservatives and the poor both see what they wanted. He stressed his modest life and compared himself with Mohammad Ali Rajai, Iran's second president. One promise was to put petroleum income on people's tables, meaning the poor would receive a share of oil profits.
He was also the only candidate to speak against any future relationship with the United States. He called the United Nations one-sided and attacked the veto held by the Security Council's five permanent members. If such a privilege must exist, he argued, the Muslim world of nearly 1.5 billion people deserved it too.
He won 62% of the runoff vote against Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. On the 3rd of August 2005 Khamenei authorized his presidency, and Ahmadinejad kissed the Supreme Leader's hand to show loyalty. Western media soon claimed he had been among the students who stormed the American embassy in Tehran. Iran's government, the Iranian opposition and a CIA investigation all denied it.
Supporters pointed to small gestures as proof of his humility. He reportedly sent the antique Persian carpets in the presidential palace to a carpet museum and chose cheap ones. He was said to have swapped the VIP seat on the presidential plane for a cargo plane. At his weekly cabinet briefings, he used to lay an extra place for the 12th Imam.
Spending rose by 25% under Ahmadinejad, and he backed subsidies for food and petrol. One account says that in his first four years real GDP grew while inflation and unemployment fell. He used a presidential decree to push interest rates below the rate of inflation. The cheap money had a side effect. People with spare cash found few safe places for it, so some urban property prices climbed to two or three times their earlier level. That hurt the poor, who were supposed to be the beneficiaries of his populism.
In June 2006-50 Iranian economists signed a letter criticizing his interventions to hold down prices of goods, cement and government services. They also objected to a proposed 40% rise in workers' pay. Ahmadinejad answered the letter harshly and denounced its authors.
He also broke up the Management and Planning Organisation, the state body that mapped out long-term economic and budget strategy. Its experienced managers were fired, and a later directive tied the agency to the government itself. Almost every economic minister was replaced in the years that followed.
One of those ministers, Davoud Danesh Jaafari, gave an interview to Fars News Agency in April 2008. He said the government had shown no respect for experience and had no plan for the future. Ahmadinejad replied that his former minister was not "a man of justice" and that the answer to Iran's economic problems was "the culture of martyrdom".
In May 2008 the petroleum minister told parliament that the government had illegally spent 2 billion dollars on petrol imports in 2007. He said he had only followed the president's order. Oil income under Ahmadinejad was the highest in Iranian history, at 275 thousand billion toman. Yet his government also ran the largest budget deficit since the revolution. He introduced gasoline rationing to cut fuel use, and in May 2011 he announced that he would run the Oil Ministry himself for a time.
His first piece of legislation was a fund of 12 trillion rial, about 1.3 billion US dollars, called "Reza's Compassion Fund". It was named after Imam Ali al-Rida. Its purpose was to help young people find jobs, marry and buy homes. A board of trustees would sit in each of Iran's 30 provinces. Parliament rejected the fund in 2006, but Ahmadinejad ordered the administrative council to carry it out anyway.
Critics also pointed to the people around him. The International Crisis Group accused him of cronyism and said no-bid contracts worth billions of dollars went to the Revolutionary Guard. His older brother Davoud served as chief inspector at the presidency until 2008. His nephew Ali Akbar Mehrabian was minister of industry and mines. His brother-in-law Masoud Zaribafan became cabinet secretary. Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, whose child married into Ahmadinejad's family, held several senior posts. That last name would soon become the center of the most dangerous quarrel of his presidency.
In October 2006 Ahmadinejad told members of parliament that Iran could support 50 million more people on top of its 70 million. He wanted the country's birth-control policy scrapped, because it discouraged couples from having more than two children. In November 2010 he went further and urged earlier marriage, suggesting about 20 for boys and 16 or 17 for girls. Critics called the timing poor, with inflation surging and unemployment estimated at 11%. His appeal echoed one made by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. That earlier push added 16 million people in seven years, and the policy was eventually reversed because of the strain.
In 2008 the government sent the Family Protection Bill to parliament. Women's rights activists said it stripped away safeguards, including the rule that a husband must get his wife's consent before taking a second wife.
Universities saw their own upheaval. In 2006 many scientists and professors were reportedly pushed to resign or retire, a purge nicknamed the "second cultural revolution". Some received letters announcing early retirement with no warning. In November 2006 alone, 53 professors had to leave the Iran University of Science and Technology, his own alma mater.
That year the government also set a 50-50 quota by sex in entrance exams for medicine, dentistry and pharmacy. Women had been entering the universities in growing numbers, and the quota appeared designed to slow that. Officials defended it by pointing to a shortage of dormitories and transport. A news site, Rooz Online, said the quotas had no legal foundation and were justified by appeals to family and religion.
The following month, in December 2006, students at Amirkabir University of Technology protested during a speech by the president. Some were angry about a Tehran conference on the Holocaust. Reports said protesters broke television cameras and threw homemade bombs. Ahmadinejad nonetheless asked officials not to disturb them, and wrote on his blog that he felt "a feeling of joy" at the freedom people enjoyed.
Human Rights Watch drew a harsher picture. It reported that treatment of detainees worsened at Evin Prison and at secret detention centers after he took office. The group also said his government tolerated no peaceful protests, a break from the Khatami years. In April 2007 police began a crackdown on women with "improper hijab", and associates of Ahmadinejad criticized it.
He sometimes crossed clerics on his own. In 2006 he declared that women should be allowed into football stadiums to watch men's clubs, and clerical authorities quickly overruled him. Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Fazel Lankarani then refused for weeks to receive him in early 2007. In 2012 Ahmadinejad claimed that the West created AIDS to weaken poorer countries, and he repeated an earlier claim that gay Iranians did not exist.
In the March 2012 parliamentary elections, Khamenei's principlist allies won about three quarters of the 290 seats. Ahmadinejad's supporters took far fewer. It was the end of a long slide that had started with the city council and Assembly of Experts elections of 2006, when voters leaned toward moderates.
In between came the vote that nearly broke the system. On the 12th of June 2009-39,165,191 ballots were cast, according to Iran's election headquarters. Ahmadinejad received 24,527,516 votes, or 62.63%. Mir-Hossein Mousavi came second with 13,216,411, or 33.75%. Both camps believed fraud had occurred. Khamenei endorsed Ahmadinejad on the 3rd of August 2009, and the swearing-in followed on the 5th. Khatami, Rafsanjani and Mousavi stayed away. Hundreds of riot police faced protesters outside parliament, and France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States held back their usual letters of congratulation.
His choices for the new cabinet set off the next fight. He named Mashaei first vice president, but members of parliament and Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i objected. Mashaei resigned on orders, and Ahmadinejad made him chief of staff. Then he fired Mohseni-Eje'i.
On the 26th of July 2009 he sacked four ministers. Article 136 of the constitution says a cabinet in which more than half the members are replaced cannot act until parliament approves the new lineup. On the 4th of September parliament approved 18 of 21 candidates. Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi became the first woman parliament ever approved as a minister in the Islamic Republic.
An earlier appointment had already embarrassed him. In August 2008 he named Ali Kordan interior minister, and the press soon found that Kordan's claimed doctorate from Oxford University was fabricated. He had also been jailed in 1978 on moral charges. Parliament expelled Kordan on the 4th of November 2008, with 188 members voting against him. Ahmadinejad had replaced nine of 21 ministers by then, so a further dismissal would have forced his entire cabinet to face review.
Parliament's speaker was a constant antagonist. In 2008 Ahmadinejad wrote a furious letter to Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel about three laws that had been published in an official newspaper without the presidency's order. In February 2009 the Supreme Audit Court reported that 1.058 billion dollars of surplus oil revenue had not been returned to the treasury.
By May 2011, lawmakers threatened impeachment after he merged eight ministries and fired three ministers without consent. Parliament also voted to investigate a claim that he had handed out cash to as many as nine million Iranians before the 2009 vote.
The sharpest break came in April 2011. Heydar Moslehi resigned as intelligence minister at Ahmadinejad's request, and Khamenei reinstated him within hours. Ahmadinejad refused for two weeks to back the reinstatement and boycotted cabinet meetings and religious ceremonies for 11 days. Clerics, parliamentarians and military commanders attacked him publicly. Several people close to him and Mashaei were arrested on charges of being "magicians" who invoked djinns. On the 8th of May he gave in and welcomed Moslehi back. Afterward he described his bond with the Supreme Leader as "that of a father and a son".
On the 14th of March 2012 he became the first president of the Islamic Republic summoned by parliament to answer questions. Khamenei later ordered a halt to a separate inquiry into his handling of the economy.
At the United Nations in September 2010, Ahmadinejad told delegates that most people believed the United States government stood behind the 9/11 attacks. Representatives of many countries walked out. President Barack Obama called the claim "inexcusable", "offensive" and "hateful". Ahmadinejad repeated the theme at the General Assembly in September 2011.
His most quoted sentence came in 2005, during a speech praising Ayatollah Khomeini. Iranian state media translated it as "Israel must be wiped off the map." Scholars including Juan Cole and Arash Norouzi argued that the Persian original did not say that. In their reading, the words for Israel, map and wiping off do not appear, and the sentence spoke of a regime collapsing. The Iranian analysis by Katajun Amirpur reads it as a quotation of Khomeini from 1979, about the Soviet Union and the Shah, with no plan for annihilation. Ahmadinejad said Iran had no plans to attack Israel.
Others were unconvinced. Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post called the picture murkier once the phrase was set beside other Iranian propaganda. Banners in English said Israel should be "wiped out of the face of the world". In March 2016 Iran tested a missile painted with a Hebrew phrase about wiping Israel off the Earth. Ahmadinejad himself said on the 15th of May 2011 that the Zionist regime should be "wiped out and vanished".
On the Holocaust, he was criticized for claims drawn from classic antisemitic ideas. He denied being an antisemite and said he "respects Jews very much". Later he said that pushing Holocaust denial onto the world stage was one of the great achievements of his presidency, because it "broke the spine of the Western capitalist regime". Those remarks appeared on the Arabic version of Fars News Agency's website but not the English one.
On the nuclear question, he insisted that Iran's program served peaceful purposes and called nuclear weapons "illegal and against our religion". In April 2006 he announced that Iran had refined uranium to a level suitable for the nuclear fuel cycle. After a missile test in May 2009 he told a crowd that Iran was "running the show". Critics led by the United States and Israel accused him of ordering UN inspectors kept from freely visiting nuclear sites.
The presidency actually held little formal control over the program. Policy was set by the Supreme National Security Council, which reports to Khamenei. Khamenei had issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons in 2005 and criticized Ahmadinejad's "personalization" of the issue. In October 2009 the United States, France and Russia proposed a UN-drafted fuel exchange. After delay, Ahmadinejad said on the 29th of October that Iran welcomed fuel exchange and cooperation. He added that Iran would not retreat "one iota" from a sovereign nuclear program.
While relations with developed nations soured, ties with Africa and Latin America grew. He and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki traveled widely there, and the bonds with Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador strengthened most. He formed a close public friendship with Hugo Chávez. After Chávez died in March 2013, Ahmadinejad predicted that Chávez would return with Jesus Christ and the Mahdi, and senior clerics at home rebuked him. A photograph of him embracing Chávez's mother at the funeral caused another uproar, and an officially released second photograph was debunked.
On the 3rd of August 2013, Ahmadinejad left his office on Pasteur Street and went home to a private house in Narmak. He told CNN he would go back to the university and retire from politics. Within weeks, Khamenei appointed him to the Expediency Council, and the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council gave him permission to launch a postgraduate university in Tehran. On the 15th of June 2015, several of his former ministers founded the YEKTA Front party.
In September 2016 came an unusual exchange. Khamenei advised him not to run for president again, and it was the first time since 1989 that he had given such advice to anyone. The next day Ahmadinejad announced he would stay out. Yet on the 12th of April 2017 he registered anyway. The Guardian Council disqualified him on the 20th of April, making him only the second person after Rafsanjani barred from seeking a third term.
He turned critic. During the 2017-18 protests he attacked the government and later Khamenei himself. He tried again in 2021 and 2024. In 2024 he applied on the 2nd of June and was disqualified on the 9th. Polls suggest he kept a following. In October 2020 an IranWire survey found 37% of respondents would back him in 2021, far ahead of the runner-up Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf at 10%.
On the 2nd of March 2022 he expressed support for Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a post on Twitter. He warned Vladimir Putin that he would have "no achievement" to show from the invasion. This put him at odds with Iran's government, which blamed NATO and the United States.
In 2023, after a prisoner swap between Iran and the United States, the US Treasury Department sanctioned him. It said he had given material support to the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. It also tied him to the detention of Robert Levinson and three American hikers, through his appointment of the two intelligence ministers who oversaw those cases.
His name surfaced again on the 28th of February 2026, the first day of the 2026 Iran war. Reports said his Narmak house was struck and allegedly destroyed, and that three Revolutionary Guard members serving as his bodyguards died. He was first reported killed, but later reports contradicted that. The Atlantic wrote that the strike freed him from official limits on his movements, which had tightened after the 2025-2026 protests.
In May 2026 a New York Times report, as summarized by other outlets, said American and Israeli officials had discussed freeing him from house arrest. They had considered backing him as a leader after Khamenei. The Guardian noted that many viewed the plan as implausible, or even as possible disinformation.
Updated
Common questions
When was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad president of Iran?
He was the sixth president of Iran, serving from 2005 to 2013. The Supreme Leader authorized his first presidency on the 3rd of August 2005.
Why did Ahmadinejad clash with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei?
The quarrel centered on his close adviser Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei and on the dismissal and reinstatement of intelligence ministers. In April 2011 Khamenei reinstated Heydar Moslehi within hours, and Ahmadinejad boycotted official functions for 11 days before giving in.
Did Ahmadinejad really say Israel must be wiped off the map?
Iranian state media translated a 2005 speech that way. Scholars such as Juan Cole and Arash Norouzi argue the Persian original spoke of a regime collapsing, while other observers point to separate Iranian propaganda and his later remarks that the Zionist regime should be wiped out.
Was Ahmadinejad allowed to run for president again after 2013?
No. The Guardian Council disqualified him in April 2017, and his later attempts to register for the 2021 and 2024 elections were also rejected.
Did the president control Iran's nuclear program?
Not directly. Nuclear policy is set by the Supreme National Security Council, which reports to Khamenei, although Ahmadinejad was a loud public supporter of the program.
All sources
281 references cited across the entry
- 1Ahmadinejad losing ground in Iran power struggle, analysts sayMatt Smith — CNN — 16 May 2011
- 2MagazineInside The Civil War That's Threatening The Iranian RegimeAbbas Milani — 3 August 2009
- 3NewsNew Mayor of Tehran appointed21 May 2003
- 4Ex-Iranian President appointed to new post5 August 2013
- 5JournalAseman Weekly19 November 2011
- 6Partei: Ahmadinedschad lebt noch1 March 2026
- 7BookIran and the Rise of Its Neoconservatives: The Politics of Tehran's Silent RevolutionAnoushiravan Ehteshami et al. — I.B.Tauris — 2007
- 8BookVanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics, and Iran's Revolutionary GuardsAfshon Ostovar — Oxford University Press — 2016
- 9BookLet the Swords Encircle Me: Iran: A Journey Behind the HeadlinesScott Peterson — Simon and Schuster — 2010
- 12BookPersian Grammar: History and State of Its StudyGernot Windfuhr — Walter de Gruyter — 1979
- 15BookWinning Revolutions: The Psychosocial Dynamics of Revolts for Freedom, Fairness, and RightsAvideh Mayville — ABC-CLIO — 2013
- 16Mahmoud AhmadinejadIran Chamber Society
- 17BookComparative Politics in TransitionJohn McCormick — Cengage Learning — 3 February 2009
- 18BookRevolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic RepublicMichael Axworthy — Oxford University Press — 10 March 2016
- 19NewsHardline mayor with a humble man-of-the-people imageRobert Tait — 2005-06-19
- 21NewsAhmadinejad Sworn in as Iran's New President6 August 2005
- 22NewsIran hardliner becomes president3 August 2005
- 24Activists Warn of Rights Crisis Ahead of Ahmadinejad VisitOmid Memarian — 17 September 2010
- 25NewsIran interest rate cut sparks panic sellingRobert Tait — 2007-05-25
- 27Assembly of Experts to study economic reform plan: Rafsanjani23 August 2008
- 28NewsIran clerics defy election ruling5 July 2009
- 29BBC News7 September 2009
- 30G8 calls on Iran to halt election violenceCarole Landry — 25 June 2009
- 31NewsIran president sees 'countdown' to Israel's end9 August 2007
- 32NewsIn New York, defiant Ahmadinejad says Israel will be 'eliminated'Louis Charbonneau — 24 September 2012
- 33Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad In His Own WordsAnti-Defamation League — 24 September 2012
- 34BookAfter Khomeini: Iran under his successorsSaid Amir Arjomand — Oxford University Press — 2009
- 35JournalThe Holocaust paradox: Holocaust denial and its use in the Arab worldNitza Davidovitch et al. — 28 February 2017
- 36NewsIran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad summoned to parliament14 March 2012
- 37NewsAhmadinejad critic Larijani re-elected Iran speaker2012-06-05
- 38NewsPower Struggle Is Gripping Iran Ahead of June ElectionThomas Erdbrink — 3 April 2013
- 39NewsHard-Line Ex-Leader Ahmadinejad Stuns Iran With Election Bid12 April 2017
- 43Iran approves 7 for presidential vote; bars reformistsMaziar Motamedi
- 45NewsInside Israel's Secret Operation to Install Ahmadinejad, Iran's Former President, as LeaderMark Mazzetti — 2026-07-13
- 46NewsInside the Mossad Plot to Install Israel's Arch-enemy Ahmadinejad as Iran's LeaderMichael Hauser Tov — July 13, 2026
- 47BookThe Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of IranYossi Melman et al. — Basic Books — 2007
- 48NewsA humble beginning helped to form Iran's new hard manRobert Tait — 2005-07-01
- 49BookAhmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran's Radical LeaderKasra Naji — University of California Press — 2008
- 50NewsMahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have Jewish past3 October 2009
- 51NewsAhmadinejad has no Jewish roots5 October 2009
- 52BookIran and the rise of Neoconservatives, the politics of Tehran's silent RevolutionAnoushiravan Enteshami et al. — I. B. Tauris — 2007
- 53NewsIran's president launches weblogBBC — 14 August 2006
- 54Can Iran Change? High stakes in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's reelection campaignJon Lee — 7 January 2009
- 56The Evolution of Iran's Revolutionary GuardRenee Montagne — NPR — 2007-04-05
- 57Mahmoud AhmadinejadColumbia University
- 58Profile: Mahmoud AhmadinejadBBC News — 2010-08-04
- 59NewsInterview transcript: Mojtaba Samareh-HashemiNajmeh Bozorgmehr — 30 May 2008
- 60Profile and Statements of President Mahmoud AhmadinejadHussein D. Hassan — Library of Congress — 16 January 2007
- 62BookDreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle EastRobin Wright — Penguin Press — 2008
- 64NewsAhmadinejad's enemies scent blood in Iran power struggleSaeed Kamali Dehghan et al. — 2011-05-19
- 65NewsHard-Line Figure In Iran RunoffKarl Vick — 19 June 2005
- 66NewsIran and the art of crisis managementS. Moubayed — 19 January 2006
- 68Divide and empowerNazenin Ansari — 25 June 2006
- 69NewsBehind Ahmadinejad, a Powerful ClericMichael Slackman — 8 September 2006
- 70Clip DrIman CNN – at Tofoiran6 September 2006
- 71BookAhmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran's Radical LeaderNaji Kasra — University of California Press — 2008
- 72NewsNew Iran interior chief approved18 November 2008
- 73Article 133International Constitutional Law — 1992
- 74اخبار رياست جمهوري11 January 2006
- 75NewsDepleted Iran cabinet meets after rejection of four by parliament26 August 2005
- 76NewsResults in Iranian Vote Seen as Setback for AhmadinejadEdmund Blair — 18 December 2006
- 77Renewed Power Struggle in Iran as the Presidential Elections Approach: Part I – Ahmadinejad's Revolutionary-Messianic Faction vs. Rafsanjani–Reformist AllianceY. Mansharof et al. — The Middle East Media Research Institute — 26 December 2008
- 78NewsAhmadinejad 'leads in Iran election'BBC — 13 June 2009
- 80NewsIran poll critics shun ceremonyBBC — 3 August 2009
- 81NewsIran's opposition calls for inauguration protests4 August 2009
- 82NewsDefiant Iran president takes oathBBC — 5 August 2009
- 83NewsIran president clashes with conservativesBorzou Daragahi et al. — 27 July 2009
- 84NewsAhmadinejad 'sacks four Iran ministers'Jay Deshmukh — 26 July 2009
- 86NewsIran backs first woman ministerBBC — 3 September 2009
- 87NewsElections in Iran Favor Ayatollah's Allies, Dealing Blow to President and His OfficeNeil MacFarquhar — 2012-03-05
- 88NewsIran's unemployment falls to 10.3 pct -minister31 March 2008
- 90NewsLetter from Tehran, The rationalistLaura Secor — 2 February 2009
- 91NewsEconomics is for donkeys11 September 2008
- 92NewsIranian economists lash out at Ahmadinejad's policies16 June 2006
- 93NewsGeopolitics casts pall on hobbled Iranian economyDavid J. Lynch — 5 September 2006
- 95NewsIran's Discontent With Ahmadinejad GrowsAli Akbar Dareini — 17 January 2007
- 96NewsAhmadinejad slammed by outgoing economy minister22 April 2008
- 97NewsMartyrdom would solve Iran's economic woes: Ahmadinejad24 April 2008
- 99NewsIran economy facing 'perfect storm'Jon Leyne — 24 October 2008
- 100NewsIran: Debate heats up over restructuring of Management and Planning Organization18 October 2006
- 101NewsIran's leader taking over Oil Ministry temporarily, news agency says16 May 2011
- 103NewsAhmadinejad urges Iranian baby boom to challenge WestRobert Tait — 23 October 2006
- 104Ebadi protests against Iran's polygamy bill4 August 2008
- 107BookWorld Report 2007: Events of 2006Human Rights Watch — Seven Stories Press — 2011
- 108NewsRajanews.com7 March 2008
- 109NewsStudents disrupt speech by Iran chiefNazila Fathi — 12 December 2006
- 110NewsBaztab
- 111NewsHIV created by West to enfeeble third world, claims Mahmoud AhmadinejadAhmad Vahdat — 18 January 2012
- 112Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on homosexualtyCNN — 23 September 2012
- 113NewsPresident Ahmadinejad: Gays are ugly and are like thievesJames Park — 24 September 2012
- 120Protesters condemn Holocaust conferenceMichael Theodoulou
- 122Films of yesterday protest in Iran are leaking out « Connections پیوستPeyvast.blog.com — 12 December 2006
- 124Freedom and LibertyAhmadinejad's English Blog
- 126NewsAhmadinejad Claims Iran Has 3,000 Centrifuges2012-02-02
- 127NewsExcerpts: Ahmadinejad conference2006-01-14
- 129NewsAhmadinejad: Iran nuke right non-negotiableUPI — 13 April 2006
- 130NewsSources: UN watchdog hiding evidence on Iran nuclear program.Barak Ravid — 12 June 2011
- 131NewsNuclear Inspections Are Curbed by IranAli Akbar Dareini — 6 February 2006
- 132NewsIran's Nuclear Program
- 134NewsIran Test-Fires Missile With 1,200-Mile RangeDavid E. Sanger et al. — 20 May 2009
- 135NewsIran: Election Of Ahmadinejad Unlikely To Affect Nuclear NegotiationsCharles Recknagel — Radio Free Europe — 27 June 2005
- 136NewsIran rebukes its prez over N-policy19 January 2007
- 137NewsAhmadinejad: Nations jealous of nuclear progressCNN — 11 February 2008
- 138Iran 'ready for nuclear agreement' – Middle EastAl Jazeera — 29 October 2009
- 139NewsIran proposes big changes to draft atom deal: report29 October 2009
- 140Iran: Ahmadi-Nejad's Tumultuous PresidencyInternational Crisis Group — 6 February 2007
- 141NewsIran: Rogue traderNajmeh Bozorgmehr — 5 June 2014
- 143Gooya7 June 2007
- 144NewsIran police move into fashion business2007-01-02
- 146NewsAhmadinejad accused of indecency2007-05-03
- 147NewsThe Iranian political structureGreg Bruno — 11 July 2008
- 148BookThe Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern IranHooman Majd — Doubleday — 2008
- 149Ahmadinejad Attacks Haddad AdelApril 2008
- 151NewsStatement: Mr Ali KordanThe University of Oxford — 15 August 2008
- 152Newsسوابق اخلاقي14 August 2008
- 153News
- 154NewsScandal, Fistfight Erupt Over Impeachment Move in IranThomas Erdbrink — 4 November 2008
- 155NewsIran minister sacked over forgery4 November 2008
- 156NewsIran examines missing oil revenue16 February 2009
- 157NewsTop Iranian Politicians Exchange AccusationsThomas Erdbrink — 2013-02-04
- 158NewsOil Money Report Rejected21 February 2009
- 159Is Ahmadinejad on His Way Out?Shayan Ghajar — 25 May 2011
- 160NewsAyatollah: Iran's president 'bewitched' by senior aideThomas Erdbrink — 15 May 2011
- 161NewsAhmadinejad loses favor with Khamenei, Iran's top leaderNazila Fathi — 7 January 2008
- 164NewsAhmadinejad allies charged with sorcerySaeed Kamali Dehghan — 5 May 2011
- 165NewsIranian lawmakers warn Ahmadinejad to accept intelligence chief as political feud deepensAli Akbar Dareini — 20 April 2011
- 166NewsClash Over Mashaei Reveals Fissures Within the Iranian RegimeGeneive Abdo — 26 April 2011
- 167NewsIran's Ahmadinejad survives worst storm of his presidencyScott Peterson — 9 May 2011
- 168NewsIran's supreme leader tells Ahmadinejad: accept minister or quitSaeed Kamali Dehghan — 6 May 2011
- 169NewsIran's Ahmadinejad affirms Khamenei decision, tensions remainThomas Erdbrink — 8 May 2011
- 170NewsSpy flap weakens Iranian President Mahmoud AhmadinejadBorzou Daragahi — 2 May 2011
- 171NewsIran calls off Ahmadinejad parliament probeAl Jazeera — 21 November 2012
- 173Khamenei puts stop to Ahmadinejad's return27 September 2016
- 175NewsAhmadinejad blocked from running in Iran presidential electionsSaeed Kamali Dehghan — 28 September 2016
- 176Ahmadinejad Prohibited to Run for President ... based on Khamenei's Orders27 September 2016
- 177Ahmadinejad vows to follow Khamenei's order not to run26 September 2016
- 178News'Lost control:' Iran's Ahmadinejad under fire from conservative critics for picture of him consoling Hugo Chavez's motherNational Post Staff and The Associated Press — 11 March 2013
- 179NewsNBC News, Ahmadinejad's scandalous moment with Hugo Chavez's mother11 March 2013
- 180NewsAhmadinejad's hug and the future of Chavez's allianceCNN — 13 March 2013
- 181NewsAhmadinejad's 'Family Justice'8 June 2009
- 182NewsIran president-elect hints at need for nuclear sanctions reliefCarol J. Williams — 15 July 2013
- 183NewsIran Presidential Election Round UpMichael Rubin et al. — 10 May 2009
- 184Wait, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's brother is running for president of Iran?Marya Hannun — 14 May 2013
- 185JournalWho Rules Iran?Reza Molavi et al. — Winter 2010
- 186NewsAhmadinejad blames West for AIDSAssociated Press — 29 July 2008
- 187, CBS
- 188NewsIran president says UN sanctions unlikelyCNN — 24 April 2006
- 190NewsIran's New President Says Israel 'Must Be Wiped Off the Map'Fathi Nazeela — 27 October 2005
- 191NewsIran leader's comments attackedBBC — 27 October 2005
- 192NewsDid Ahmadinejad really say Israel should be 'wiped off the map'?Glenn Kessler — 5 October 2011
- 193NewsDebating Every Last Word of Ahmadinejad's 'Wipe Israel Off the Map'Uri Friedman — 5 October 2011
- 194NewsLost in translationJonathan Steele — 14 June 2006
- 195JournalIran's Policy towards Jewish Iranians and the State of Israel. Is the Present Iranian State Islamofascist?Katajun Amirpur — 2012
- 196BookNavigating Contemporary Iran: Challenging Economic, Social and Political PerceptionsEric Hooglund — Routledge — 2013
- 197Meridor: Ahmadinejad didn't say, 'Wipe Israel off the map'17 April 2012
- 199NewsReports: Iran fires missile marked with 'Israel should be wiped'9 March 2016
- 200NewsIsrael Calls on U.N. to Punish Iran for Missile TestsRick Gladstone — 14 March 2016
- 201NewsUnthinking the Thinkable: Iran and the BombSpencer Case — 26 September 2016
- 202NewsIran tests missile capable of reaching Israel9 May 2016
- 204NewsWorld Leaders Condemn Iranian's Call to Wipe Israel 'Off the Map'Karl Vick et al. — 28 October 2005
- 205NewsDiplomats walk out as Ahmadinejad rails against Israel in UNHaaretz — 24 September 2009
- 206NewsIran team face mass protestLuke Harding et al. — 10 June 2006
- 207NewsHow a nice Jewish girl met Iranian madman Mahmoud AhmadinejadOphelie Namiech — 2 October 2009
- 208Ahmadinejad's speech @ Columbia university – a transcript25 September 2007
- 209NewsIranian leader 'not anti-Semite'BBC — 21 September 2006
- 210NewsUN Scrutiny Won't Make Iran Quit Nuclear Effort, President SaysNaila Fathi — 15 January 2006
- 211NewsMiddle East peace talks are 'doomed to fail', says AhmadinejadIan Black — 3 September 2010
- 213NewsMid-East talks doomed, says Iranian leader AhmadinejadJeremy Bowen — BBC — 3 September 2010
- 215NewsIran continues back-and-forth barbs with Palestinians over peace talksCNN — 5 September 2010
- 216NewsProgress of Middle East peace talks 'a surprise'John Lyons — 6 September 2010
- 217YouTube: Full speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at UNRussia Today — 23 September 2010
- 218Iranian leader wants 'fact-finding mission' into causes of 9/11 attacksMichael O'Brien — 24 September 2010
- 219NewsBarack Obama condemns Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's UN speechBBC — 25 September 2010
- 220In Beirut, Iranian President Ahmadinejad Reiterates 9/11 Conspiracy, Accuses the West in Al-Hariri AssassinationThe Middle East Media Research Institute. Special Dispatch No. 3304 — October 18, 2010
- 221NewsIranian president questions Holocaust, 9/11Dudi Cohen — 25 June 2011
- 222NewsAl Qaeda Calls On Mahmoud Ahmadinejad To End 'Ridiculous' 9/11 Conspiracy TheoriesMark Hanrahan — 28 September 2011
- 223NewsIran's Ahmadinejad criticised over Chavez remarks8 March 2013
- 224NewsAhmadinejad's claim that Chávez will be resurrected with Jesus 'went too far'Saeed Kamali Dehghan — 7 March 2013
- 225NewsIran's Ahmadinejad criticised over Chavez remarks8 March 2013
- 226News Tabnak
- 228NewsIran's Ahmadinejad to Set Up University After Exit From OfficeLadane Nasseri — 29 July 2013
- 229NewsAhmadinejad in new appointment5 August 2013
- 231Newsسفرهای انتخاباتی احمدینژاد به ایستگاه آخر رسید24 September 2016
- 233Iran's supreme leader tells former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad not to run againRamin Mostaghim and Shashank Bengali — 26 September 2016
- 235Iran's Supreme Leader Advises Ahmadinejad Not to Run for President27 September 2016
- 237Newsاحمدینژاد از بقایی حمایت کرد20 March 2017
- 238NewsIran disqualifies Ahmadinejad from bid to regain presidency20 April 2017
- 239NewsThe Reincarnation of Mahmoud AhmadinejadRohollah Faghihi
- 241Tehran Supports Putin, but Some Iranians Admire Ukraine's ResistanceJonathan Harounoff — 2022-03-14
- 242Former Iranian president defies regime, expresses support for Ukraine, calls on Russia to end warShahar Klaiman — 2022-03-06
- 244Treasury Designates Former President of Iran18 September 2023
- 246NewsThree IRGC members from former president Ahmadinejad's security team killed in Tehran attack28 February 2026
- 248IranWire1 March 2026
- 252NewsEarly War Goal Was to Install Hard Line Former President as Iran's LeaderMark Mazzetti et al. — 2026-05-19
- 253NewsUS and Israel 'hoped to install Ahmadinejad as Iran's leader'Patrick Wintour — 2026-05-20
- 258JournalPolitical Party in Islamic Republic of Iran: A ReviewHossein Asayesh et al. — March 2011
- 259Young Journalists Club27 March 2014
- 260Iran: A Rising Star In Party PoliticsBill Samii — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — 7 November 2005
- 261Presidential Candidates21 May 2009
- 262Ahmadinejad receives highest national honor of Benin2013-04-15
- 266Qadaffi's Man in Managua2011-05-10
- 267Problematic Brothers: Chávez and AhmadinejadNasrin Alavi — 2008-03-13
- 268The Language of Ahmadinejad: 'The Bogeyman Snatched the Boob'Golnaz Esfandiari — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — 11 August 2010
- 269NewsIran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can't stop responding to tweets today16 October 2018
- 271Information and Public Opinion Solutions LLC24 May 2016
- 272Iranian Public Opinion on Key National and International IssuesCenter for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM) & IranPoll.com — January 2017
- 273Pollster's View: Do People Really Want Ahmadinejad Back?Mahrokh Gholamhosseinpour — 30 December 2020
- 275Bio: Ahmadinejad16 May 2006
- 277JournalA loyal liability22 December 2010
- 278Khamenei offers implicit support to Ahmadinejad12 May 2009
- 280NewsTravels in AhmadinejadlandPepe Escobar — 15 September 2015
- 281NewsA modern history of Iran18 November 2017
- 283The Crisis: the President, the Prophet, and the Shah—1979 and the Coming of Militant IslamDavid Harris — Little, Brown — 2004