Meet Ahmad Vahidi, Iran's top leader running the show behind the scenes amid new Mojtaba Khamenei reports
While Donald Trump believes Iran’s new leaders are easier to deal with, experts warn things may not be so simple. Behind the scenes, a powerful but lesser-known figure, Ahmad Vahidi may be quietly gaining control.
While the world watches Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf lead nuclear negotiations. Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi, the new head of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is steadily building influence and he has little interest in compromise with the United States, according to Newsweek
Who is Vahidi and why does he matter?
Vahidi is not new to power. He previously served as a founding chief of the elite Quds Force, deputy IRGC commander, defense minister and interior minister. He has been under an Interpol Red Notice since 2007 and US sanctions since 2010 over an alleged role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Argentina.
He became IRGC chief after his predecessor Mohammad Pakpour was killed in the opening stages of the current war — itself a replacement for former IRGC chief Hossein Salami, who was killed by Israel during the 12-Day War last June.
Last week, US Under Secretary of State Thomas DiNanno called his promotion to IRGC chief as a “clear proof of the IRGC’s culpability as a foreign terrorist organization,” as per Newsweek.
Despite years of international sanctions, his career inside Iran never slowed down.
Analysts say Vahidi has been consolidating power since his predecessor was killed in the early stages of the US-Israeli war against Iran two months ago. He has built a close inner circle and appears to be pushing aside officials seen as more open to a deal with Washington.
“Vahidi and IRGC leaders close to him appear to have sidelined more pragmatist officials, such as the leaders of Iran’s negotiating delegation,” Annika Ganzeveld of the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project told Newsweek.
“Vahidi, in contrast, has not indicated any willingness to concede to core US demands related to Iran’s nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz.”
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So is this the “regime change’ Trump claimed?
Trump has repeatedly insisted that regime change has already happened in Iran. “If you look already because the one regime was decimated, destroyed. They’re all dead,” Trump said earlier this week. “So, I would consider that regime change.”
But experts push back hard on that framing.
“This regime is more hardline, less prone to compromise and, frankly, more nakedly tied to the IRGC,” Mona Yacoubian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told CNN. “We’ve seen the decapitation of the reigning leader in Iran at the time, but that has not translated into dramatic change in terms of who holds the power.”
If anything, experts say the war has handed more power to hardline military factions and deepened anti-American sentiment which is exactly opposite of what Trump has claimed.
“When President Trump says he has changed the regime in Iran, he’s right in one sense — he’s changed it to a much more radicalized regime,” said Ali Vaez, Iran Project Director at the International Crisis Group, according to CNN.
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Is Iran moving closer to a nuclear weapon?
One of the biggest concerns for Western governments is what Iran might do next on nuclear weapons.
Iran’s former Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei had issued a fatwa which is an Islamic legal ruling that banned the country from building a nuclear bomb. But after his death, that rule died with him, according to experts.
Right now, Iran has more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. This means it already has a major part of what is needed to make a nuclear weapon, if it decides to go ahead.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is now more powerful than ever, has also been watching countries like North Korea. North Korea has avoided major military attacks largely because it has nuclear weapons and experts say Iran’s military leaders are paying close attention to that.
“It’s hard to see how the regime could come to any other conclusion than that its best hope for deterrence is the possession of a nuclear weapon,” Yacoubian told CNN. “At this point, nothing to lose.”
Additionally, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that. “We also have to be prepared for the possibility, maybe even the probability, that that is not the case” referring to the idea that Iran’s new leadership may not be more reasonable.
For now, experts say the situation in Tehran suggests a government that is becoming more controlled by the military, more strict, and less willing to compromise.