Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET.

Today we discuss:

• Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the center of a years-long Mossad effort to groom him as an intelligence asset who, when the time came, could be installed as Iran’s new post-regime puppet leader, reports the New York Times. Israel’s then-spy chief David Barnea even traveled to Budapest in 2024 to meet with Ahmadinejad personally, according to former American officials. It’s an extraordinary twist in the saga of Israel’s relations with the former president, who was known for accelerating Iran’s nuclear program, calling regularly for the destruction of Israel and denying the Holocaust.

• Iran threatened to block all oil exporting routes in the reg ...