The resolution to this puzzle may be that what appeared at first to be an assassination was no such thing. Contrary to early reports, Ahmadinejad is alive, his associates say. (They requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation.) The circumstances of his survival may prove significant as the war drags on. Whatever the intent, Ahmadinejad’s associates say the strike was in effect a jailbreak operation that freed the former president from regime control. Their description of the chaotic sequence of events that began before the war suggests that Ahmadinejad has friends on the outside.