Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi has a job that’s among the most powerful and influential in Iran – and one in which the shadow of death constantly hovers.
Vahidi has taken command of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at a particularly challenging moment, amid a joint US-Israeli war on his country that has killed more than 1,000 people, devastated Iranian cities, and assassinated much of the country’s senior military leadership.
His is a dangerous job.
Qassem Soleimani, the long‑time commander of the IRGC’s elite Quds Force, for example, was killed in a US drone strike in 2020 ordered by US President Donald Trump.
Mohammad Pakpour, the most recent IRGC chief, was also killed during the opening phase of the joint Israeli-US attacks on February 28.
Pakpour had been appointed only after Israel killed his predecessor, Hossein Salami, during the 12-day war in June 2025.
This churn at the top of the IRGC underscores the risks attached to one of the most powerful posts in Iran’s military establishment.
Now, Vahidi is tasked with a responsibility that even Soleimani, an iconic figure in Iran, never had to embrace: Leading the sword edge of Iran’s military in an actual, full-blown war.
Who is Ahmad Vahidi? Vahidi’s appointment as the new IRGC chief isn’t surprising.
In December, the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – who was killed on the opening day of the war, on February 28 – named him deputy chief.
Prior to that, he served as deputy chief of Iran’s army.
A product of the IRGC from its earliest days in the late 1970s, Vahidi rose through the ranks during the 1980s, holding key positions in intelligence and in the military.
Iranian state media reports that he led the elite Quds Force from 1988 to 1997.
He would hand the Quds Force’s leadership to Soleimani, who took command in 1998 and was widely credited with expanding Iran’s influence across the Middle East, until he was assassinated in 2020.
Vahidi appears to have publicly sworn himself to upholding the principles and aims of the Islamic Revolution.
When he was appointed the deputy chief of the IRGC in December, he said, “Guarding the Islamic Revolution is one of the greatest virtues in the world, and the greatest evil that has been committed is opposing the Islamic system.” In a 2025 interview with Iran’s Press TV, marking the 46th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, he described that uprising as a “burst of light” which changed the history and destiny of the region and the world.
He has shown pragmatism when it serves Tehran’s strategic goals.
In the mid‑1980s, Vahidi reportedly took part in covert contacts between Iranian representatives and intermediaries close to the administration of then-President Ronald Reagan that were linked to the broader Iran‑Contra affair, in which US officials secretly facilitated arms deliveries to....
