Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 19 April 2026
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective
America’s Longest-Running Column, Founded 1932
The real enemy
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
 
WASHINGTON – There has indeed been a regime change in Iran, and not for the better. The Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has followed the paths of Rome’s Praetorian Guard that protected, often selected (and regularly executed) emperors until Emperor Constantine was able to disband the organization, and Russia’s Streltsy that did likewise for the czars until Peter the Great brutally executed some of them and sent the remainder to Siberia.
When the current war with Iran began, the commander of the IRGC was among the Iranian politicians, clerics, and military officers who were killed. This brought to power his deputy, Ahmad Vahidi, an extremist sanctioned by various nations for a list of atrocities. He is well known to Western intelligence and military officers, but barely on the public’s radar.
The IRGC is divided into Principlist, those hardliners loyal to the ideas of the 1979 Revolution, and pragmatic Reformists. Vahidi is a Principlist whose roots, unlike those of most Iranian leaders, actually go back to the events of 1979, and he led the Quds Force of the IRGC promoting international terrorism.
So, here is a man rising to the pinnacle of power who was the deputy leader of the IRGC, a relatively small military force separate and apart from the Iranian Armed Forces.
But who are the other players? President Masoud Pezeshkian was popularly elected. He is a heart surgeon and a moderate who has promoted women and even Sunnis (Iran is a Shiite nation), and he has advocated opening ties to the West. It was his Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi who announced the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz last Friday. The following day, the IRGC reversed the decision, an act that confirmed Vahidi’s power. Further, when Pezeshkian sought to appoint new ministers, Vahidi intervened and prevented the appointments. Under these circumstances, Pezeshkian, an educated man cognizant of Streltsy and Praetorian Guard history, claims to support the IRGC.
Speaker of the Parliament Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf is the other name often touted as an important figure in the government. Previously, he was the mayor of Tehran and the head of the IRGC Air Force, and like Vahidi, he is a Principlist.
Finally, there is Mojtaba Khamenei who was chosen as Supreme Leader following his father’s death on the first day of the war. Apparently wounded during the attack, he has not been seen in public since then, and his only communications have been purported written statements. He is not playing a role in the current power struggle.
This brings us to the peace talks. Araghchi attends on behalf of Pezeshkian although he remains in contact with Vahidi. Ghalibaf, on the other hand, who is viewed as the lead negotiator, apparently only reports to Vahidi.
If this dynamic remains in place – and, in wartime, people and circumstances can quickly change – we may expect to see the hardest of hardline approaches from the Iranians, far more so than what prevailed before the war.
What all this poses is one question: who is the U.S. enemy in this war? It was not the Iranian Army that killed thousands of protesters before the war began. It was the IRGC and its allies. It was not the Iranian Navy (unnecessarily destroyed by the U.S. and Israel) that fired on two ships in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend. It was the IRGC Navy. Had the U.S. and Israel declared war on the IRGC instead of Iran, targets would have been different, and Iranian allies might even have joined the effort. Afterall, the 175,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the IRGC (plus some militia allies) are unpopular, isolated, and insufficient in strength to continue to dominate a population of 93 million people unless those people continue as friendless, weaponless, and leaderless.
 
See Eleanor Clift’s book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
© 2026 U.S. News Syndicate, Inc
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END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND