I don't know what your friend experienced or what you mean by radicalized or what was happening in Iran where and when your friend visited.(the regime may have been clamping down even more for some reason while your friend was there) The gov't has put more basij on the streets and has clamped down more than in recent years. They're trying to reign in the population, because they can feel themselves losing control over the people.
Ahmadinejad was selected to be the president by Khamenei. There is NO doubt that the majority of Iranians want freedom and want to see the end of this regime.
In brief the issues are that someone I know went to Iran who was born there.
They are a Christian with family still back there.
Over the years he has gone several times, the last visit being about 7 years prior.
His last trip showed the country was massively radicalized with people who are all like the insurgents we fight in Iraq.
Conversations with Iranians were scary for him. They all wanted to convert him to Muslim, were trying to force the Koran on him. They were all saying (outside his own family in Iran) that they wanted harm and death to the west and America.
This person said this was a massive change from the Iran he had visited even ten years ago. Things are massively radicalized there.
It was predicted that we would for sure need to be at war with Iran within the year.
This same person also found when he came back to America some Iranians near the beach area of California that were a cell planning to do 9/11 types stuff here in America and he reported that and his local mosque to the FBI.
I need no more convincing of how bad Iran is today.