Has a power vacuum emerged in Iran’s regime, and who is really calling the shots? As the conflict enters its fourth week, these questions are shaping Western policy and military strategy. The answer reveals why prematurely stopping the war will almost certainly produce a far more extremist regime.
Against this backdrop and reports that Washington has been negotiating with the “real powerbroker” in the regime, Western policy circles have concluded a new strongman has emerged in Tehran.
The past month has seen the US and Israel eliminate the most senior ranking officials in the Islamic Republic, including supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Mojtaba, Ali Khamenei’s son, who has now formally succeeded his father as supreme leader, was also targeted, but reportedly narrowly survived. That said, Mojtaba’s complete absence from the public eye since he assumed the mantle has led many to conclude that the new supreme leader is severely wounded and out of the decision-making picture, at least for now.
Despite incurring significant losses, there is still a high degree of coordination between the government bureaucracy, military and intelligence apparatus – the three key pillars upholding the Islamic Republic. Against this backdrop and reports that Washington has been negotiating with the “real powerbroker” in the regime, Western policy circles have concluded a new strongman has emerged in Tehran. All attention has turned to the obvious contender: Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament and veteran of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – the regime’s ideological army.
But in Iran, the obvious answer is rarely the correct one. While the egotistical Ghalibaf has played to the limelight, a far more powerful figure is likely to be silently pulling the strings: Ahmad Vahidi – the new IRGC commander-in-chief who is a Khamenei absolutist.
Unlike Ghalibaf, Vahidi has remained in the shadows since the war. This is not without reason: our analysis suggests he is likely to be operating as the key cog in the regime’s chain of command and his survival is essential to its continuity. Long before the war, Ali Khamenei had entrusted Vahidi to draw up plans to further militarise the regime. If he outlasts this conflict and the regime survives, he will finally be able to implement this vision – a design that will produce a far more radical and extremist Islamic Republic.
Vahidi has unmatched experience and influence across the regime’s military, intelligence, and bureaucracy. His career began in the 1980s in the IRGC’s Intelligence Bureau, made up of the regime’s most ideologically loyal operatives. As the IRGC’s deputy for intelligence, he was hand-picked to join a secretive cohort to accompany Khamenei to visit North Korea – a trip designed to acquire missile and nuclear technology.
During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), Vahidi was also one of the original members of the Ramadan Headquarters, a unit within the IRGC created to form Islamist terrorist groups globally and overseen by Khamenei.
Upon assuming the supreme leadership in 1989, Khamenei created the notorious Quds Force – the IRGC’s extraterritorial terror branch – and appointed Vahidi as its first commander. It was a testament to his loyalty. Vahidi demonstrated in that role that his vision to export terrorism was far more global than his notorious successor Qasem Soleimani.
Under Vahidi’s command, the IRGC orchestrated the bombing of a Jewish cultural centre in Argentina in 1994, the 1996 Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia, and secretly dispatched operatives to Europe to train Islamist Mujahideen – including members of al-Qaeda – during the Bosnian war. This résumé would earn him a spot on Interpol’s wanted list in 2007.
It was a testament to his loyalty. Vahidi demonstrated in that role that his vision to export terrorism was far more global than his notorious successor Qasem Soleimani.
The doors to the government opened for Vahidi when the IRGC-affiliated Mahmoud Ahmadinejad assumed the presidency in 2005. As deputy defence minister and then defence chief, Vahidi was instrumental in overseeing the expansion of Iran’s ballistic missiles and nuclear programmes. It is likely he did this with the assistance of his North Korean friends.
He also expanded the Islamic Republic’s nefarious footprint in Latin America, especially Venezuela. Vahidi’s deep ties to the Quds Force and Hezbollah would have made him the perfect candidate to spearhead the Islamic Republic’s involvement in narcotics trafficking – a lucrative business the IRGC justified through an ideological lens of causing long-term damage to infidel Western societies.
In government, Vahidi was also one of the masterminds behind the militarisation of the state bureaucracy. He exploited his position to replace ordinary civil servants with IRGC affiliates. He furthered this “purification” when he was appointed interior minister under the presidency of hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi.
In this role, Vahidi replaced almost all political appointees and governors with IRGC commanders. These efforts paid dividends for Vahidi, enhancing government coordination with the IRGC’s suppressive apparatus and enabling him to direct the crackdown on Iran’s 2022 Woman Life Freedom unrest.
But the most consequential role Vahidi has held is almost entirely unknown to the outside world until now. In 2018, Vahidi was appointed as head of Iran’s “Supreme National Defense University” and was entrusted by the late supreme leader to devise a plan to fully militarise the Islamist theocracy.
He did this by establishing the Shahid Beheshti School of Governance – the first and only institution of its kind in Iran that was open exclusively to military personnel. The goal was to ensure the next cadre of the Islamic Republic’s political elite and decision makers would be from the military and therefore trained under the oversight of the most senior IRGC commanders, not just the clergy.
Vahidi may now finally be in a position to implement this plan. This does not mean that the IRGC is taking power from the clerics. Rather, it would be the clergy’s armed extension, shaped by the same ideological training and loyal to the same system. What Vahidi represents is not the end of theocracy, but its further militarisation: a shift from clerical guardianship to a system in which clerical rule is increasingly enforced, managed, and maintained by men in uniform.
That is why halting the war now would be a serious mistake. The short-term costs of continuing the campaign are real, but the long-term cost of allowing this regime to survive in its current form could be much greater.
Far from undermining Mojtaba, Vahidi appears to be one of the figures best positioned to maintain his rule during wartime. Unlike Ghalibaf, who carries political baggage and many rivals within the system, Vahidi has greater credibility across the IRGC and broader acceptance within the security establishment. This makes him far more significant than public speculation suggests. He is not just another commander. He may be the person holding the system together while others seek visible faces in Tehran.
That is why halting the war now would be a serious mistake. The short-term costs of continuing the campaign are real, but the long-term cost of allowing this regime to survive in its current form could be much greater. A system preserved by Mojtaba Khamenei and Ahmad Vahidi would not become more cautious or pragmatic; it would become harsher, more militarised, and more dangerous. It would resemble an Islamist North Korea. So the question is no longer whether the Islamic Republic can survive this war, but what kind of regime will remain if it does—and that should concern everyone.
Published originally on March 26, 2026.
