A New York Times story claims Israel spent years turning former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into a Mossad asset — bad news for Israel's regime-change hopes, since the scheme collapsed.

• Israel and the Mossad reportedly convinced Trump that a war on Iran could spark a revolution and topple the regime.
• The plan was to install Ahmadinejad, once a hardliner who denied the Holocaust and called for wiping out Israel, as a pro-Western puppet who would recognize Israel.
• After a February airstrike near his compound, Mossad operatives allegedly whisked Ahmadinejad to a safe house, but he got cold feet and backed out.
• He is now reportedly under house arrest in Iran for conspiring with the Israelis.
• A competing theory: Ahmadinejad may have been an Israeli asset all along, playing the "crazed radical" earlier to justify a Western attack on Iran.

Outlook: With the plot exposed and Ahmadinejad detained, Israel's regime-change push in Iran looks stalled for now.