Response:

This myth derives from a remark made by Ahmadinejad nearly four years ago, quoting a comment by Ayatollah Khomeini decades before that:  "This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be wiped off/eliminated from the pages of history/our times."

Ahmadinejad has made other offensive and threatening remarks about Israel and other nations -- most notably his indefensible denial of the Holocaust.

However, the Supreme Leader Khamenei promptly "clarified" that "[the Islamic Republic] will not commit aggression towards any nations; we will not breach any nation's rights anywhere in the world"  and specifically that Iran will not attack Israel unless Iran is attacked first.¹

Ahmadinejad himself later explained, or was forced to explain, that he had been referring to regime change through demographics (giving the Palestinians a vote in a unitary state), not war.

Whatever Ahmadinejad may have been thinking at the time, his remark has not materially altered Iran's long-standing policy, which has remained the same for decades: deny the legitimacy of Israel; arm and aid groups opposing Israel in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank; but promise to accept any deal with Israel that the Palestinians accept.

Footnotes

1. Barbara Slavin, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies (St. Martins Press 2007), pp. 51-52 (quoting Khamenei's 2005 sermon broadcast on Iranian state television).  As Slavin observes: "The rebuttal got almost no attention outside Iran, even though Khamenei outranks the president in all matters. [back]