Experts raise eyebrows over ‘Swiss cheese’ NY Times report claiming US, Israel eyed freeing Ahmadinejad to be Iran’s new leader

An explosive New York Times report claims US and Israeli officials explored a shocking possibility of elevating former far-right hardliner Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s new leader.

While both Washington and Jerusalem refrain from denying the story, experts told The Post there’s likely more to the story.

“This story is like Swiss cheese — with a lot of holes,” Beni Sabti, an Iran expert at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, told The Post, casting doubt on key elements of the reporting.

The report, published Tuesday, suggested a Feb. 28 strike on Ahmadinejad’s home “had been designed to free him from house arrest” — not kill him.

But Sabti said the idea of the deeply anti-Israel former president would be so unreasonable to the Jewish state that it casts doubt on the idea that Washington and Israel could have wanted him to fill a leadership vacuum