Peloni: Vahidi is betting on Trump becoming frustrated with Iran, and thus gaining victory from the essence of the Iranian regime to hold out no matter the cost to their war machine, infrastructure and leadership personel. Will he be proven right in this, or does Vahidi stand as the remaining straw needed to be targeted to bring the regime to its knees?
Jalal Tagreeb
Ahmad Vahidi. Photo by Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0, Wikipedia
By the time Donald Trump sent his latest ultimatum to Tehran in April 2026, the man effectively deciding Iran’s response was not a president, not a foreign minister, and not even a supreme leader newly installed after Ali Khamenei’s death. It was a brigadier general with a warrant out for his arrest in Argentina, a man who has operated in the shadows of Iran’s security state for nearly half a century — Ahmad Vahidi.
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