_WHAT’S HAPPENING_
With Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei absent from public view since his father's assassination in February — and possibly even dead — Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has consolidated control over the country's wartime government. Major General Ahmad Vahidi, the IRGC's new commander, has emerged as the de facto power broker in Tehran, directing both military operations and the regime's approach to peace negotiations with the United States.
The transition became evident when Iran's delegation abruptly pulled back from talks with the Trump team in Pakistan after Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi suggested flexibility on key issues.
Vahidi's allies in the Supreme National Security Council reportedly complained that Araghchi had exceeded his mandate, prompting Tehran to recall the negotiating team. Iran has since refused to return to the table.
_THE FACTS_
Ahmad Vahidi, 67, became IRGC commander after the Feb. 28 airstrikes killed former commander Mohammad Pakpour and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Vahidi is an internationally wanted terrorist with an Interpol red notice for his role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
He previously served as commander of Iran's elite Quds Force in the 1990s, building Iran's terror proxy network before handing control to Qasem Soleimani.
The European Union sanctioned Vahidi in 2022 for the regime's use of live ammunition against protesters, which killed nearly 500 people according to human rights groups.
Parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is another hardliner who has near-total control over the current war effort.
Ghalibaf is a longtime senior IRGC commander with deep ties to the regime’s repressive security apparatus, and has a proven willingness to use force to preserve the Islamic Republic’s authoritarian control.
The IRGC controls the Supreme National Security Council, which coordinates military, intelligence and foreign policy decisions in Iran.
Iran seized two cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz this week, maintaining its aggressive maritime posture.
The IRGC has an estimated 200,000 uniformed members plus hundreds of thousands more in its volunteer Basij force.
_OUR TAKE_
Iran is now a country ruled by military generals instead of religious clerics. Ahmad Vahidi is a hardened fighter, and his past demonstrates he is unafraid to be brutal in his military aggression. Likewise, Ghalibaf is a product of Iran’s severe security apparatus, unafraid to crack down on Iranian citizens to maintain control.
With the negotiations in Islamabad deadlocked and with the Strait of Hormuz still at a stalemate between Iranian and US control, the IRGC appears to be clamping down hard, uninterested in a resolution to the war. The prospect of regime change — though not an explicit goal of the Trump administration — is now highly unrealistic.
