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New IRGC Chief "Frequently Overruled" Iran's Leaders during Talks with U.S.
(Wall Street Journal) Benoit Faucon - Ahmad Vahidi, 67, commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has emerged as a key power broker in Iran who is pushing a hard line at the negotiating table with Washington. The Revolutionary Guard and those close to it have stood as the biggest obstacle to an agreement. For months, Vahidi, whose predecessor was killed on the first day of the war, has tussled with more public-facing, political figures in the Iranian leadership. Each time, he has come out on top. Vahidi was a founding member of the Revolutionary Guard and took charge of its intelligence branch in 1982. He helped establish the Quds Force, which specialized in training foreign militias to attack Iran's enemies, and became its first commander in 1988. In the 1990s, he helped develop Hizbullah into the dominant military force in Lebanon. Vahidi was sanctioned by the U.S. for helping oversee a crackdown on protests over women's rights in 2022 and is wanted by Interpol for helping orchestrate the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and injured hundreds more. Throughout the war, Vahidi has frequently overruled Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian, said Arab, Iranian and European officials.