There is a sinister new power in Iran, and it's not who the West thinks

[LiberalArkie]

Published 26 March 2026 11:28am GMT



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.

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 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.

Snip

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/26/sinister-power-in-iran-and-not-who-west-thinks/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. To think, during WWII, Tehran was the site for FDR, Churchill, and Stalin to meet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehran_Conference

The Tehran Conference (codenamed Eureka[1]) was a strategy meeting of the Allies of World War II, held between Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943. It was the first of the Allied World War II conferences involving the "Big Three" (the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom) and took place at the Soviet embassy in Tehran more than two years after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. The meeting occurred shortly after the Cairo Conference was held in Egypt for a discussion between the United States, the United Kingdom, and China from 22 to 26 November 1943. The Big Three would not meet again until 1945, when the Yalta Conference was held in Crimea from 4 to 11 February and the Potsdam Conference was held in Allied-occupied Germany from 17 July to August 2. Notably, President Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived on the USS Iowa.

Although the three leaders arrived in Tehran with differing objectives, the main outcome of the meeting was a British and American commitment to opening a second front against Nazi Germany, thereby forcing it to pull military assets away from the Eastern Front with the Soviets. In addition to this decision, the Tehran Conference also addressed: the Big Three's relations with Turkey and Iran, as the former was being pressed to enter the conflict and the latter was under Allied occupation; operations in Yugoslavia and against Japan; and the envisaged settlement following the expected defeat of the Axis powers. A separate contract also saw the Big Three pledge to recognize Iranian independence.

_________
More at Wiki link