The news outlet Axios revealed direct US-IRGC contacts, while journalist Pepe Escobar claims that behind them lay a far more ambitious operation: for the US to secure a victory over Iran through bribery...
An exceptionally interesting coincidence now connects two different revelations regarding the backstage maneuvering of the US-Iran war.
On August 16, Axios revealed that the administration of Donald Trump established a secret backchannel of direct communication with the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), bypassing the official Iranian negotiating team. The channel was established through the President of Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, and led to direct communication with IRGC commander General Ahmad Vahidi.
Four days later, Pepe Escobar published a far more explosive version of the same story.
According to a source he cites, the American side did not merely attempt to ascertain whether Ahmad Vahidi and the IRGC supported negotiations.
The goal, Pepe Escobar argues, was to use the channel to divide the Iranian leadership and buy off top IRGC officials with enormous financial incentives.
This second allegation has not been independently verified. However, the fact that both revelations converge on the same individuals and the same communication mechanism makes the matter particularly significant.
Axios reveals the secret channel
According to Axios, in May, Washington faced a critical problem: American negotiators were not certain that the Iranian representatives at the table had the authority to bind the IRGC.
Thus, the then-head of US intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, with the approval of Donald Trump and JD Vance, contacted Nechirvan Barzani.
Nechirvan Barzani was considered an ideal mediator because he maintains ties with both Washington and Tehran, speaks Farsi, and has personal contacts with top figures in the Iranian system, including IRGC officials.
The request from Tulsi Gabbard was specific: to determine whether Ahmad Vahidi and the leadership of the IRGC agreed with what was being negotiated by Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
Nechirvan Barzani activated the channel.
On May 14, according to Axios, an IRGC official went to the office of Nechirvan Barzani in Erbil with an encrypted phone. Direct communication with Ahmad Vahidi followed.
And the response from Ahmad Vahidi was, according to sources from Axios, the exact opposite of what Washington might have wanted:
Ahmad Vahidi stated that he fully supports the Iranian negotiators and that the IRGC prefers resolving the crisis through negotiations.
This is the first critical element.
And here appears the version of Pepe Escobar
Pepe Escobar describes the same basic channel, but contends that the American administration had a far more ambitious objective.
According to a source who, as he claims, is in the inner circle of Mojtaba Khamenei, Donald Trump tried to turn access to Ahmad Vahidi into an operation for the internal fracture of the Iranian state.
The logic was divide and rule: isolate the peak of the Iranian leadership, approach the military figures around it, offer huge financial incentives, and create the conditions for an internal overthrow.
Pepe Escobar claims that billions of dollars were offered to members of the top leadership of the IRGC through Ahmad Vahidi, in exchange for distancing themselves from the government in Tehran or facilitating regime change.
The attempt, according to his source, failed.
Ahmad Vahidi reportedly rejected it.
The same figure is at the center of both revelations
Here lies perhaps the most important point of the case.
We do not have two unrelated stories.
Axios and Pepe Escobar refer to the same mechanism and the same primary Iranian interlocutor: Donald Trump → Nechirvan Barzani → Ahmad Vahidi → IRGC.
Axios presents the channel as an effort by Washington to communicate directly with the real military authority of Iran.
Pepe Escobar argues that this access was utilized to examine whether the military leadership itself could be detached from the Iranian state.
The difference is enormous.
In the first version, it is backchannel diplomacy.
In the second, a crude bribery operation.
Why did Washington want to speak with the IRGC?
The answer lies in the power structure of postwar Iran.
The American administration could not take for granted that the official government or the negotiating team possessed full control over strategic decisions.
That is why Tulsi Gabbard asked Nechirvan Barzani to find Ahmad Vahidi.
Washington wanted to know something very simple:
If Tehran agrees, will the IRGC follow?
The answer received through the secret channel was «yes, the IRGC supports the negotiations».
This also means, however, that Washington recognized the IRGC as an indispensable factor for any agreement.
The revelation alters the picture of the war
For months, public American rhetoric presented Iran as an adversary that could be forced into retreat through military and economic pressure.
The background revealed by Axios shows something different.
Washington needed a secret channel to the leadership of the IRGC to understand who actually makes the decisions in Iran.
And the fact that the channel ran through Erbil and Nechirvan Barzani shows how difficult direct communication was.
This is precisely what makes the allegation from Pepe Escobar so interesting.
If the American side had already secured access to Ahmad Vahidi, the possibility that it attempted to explore other options, including the fracturing of the Iranian military leadership, is no longer a story about a hypothetical contact.
A channel truly existed.
The question is what Washington attempted to achieve through it.
Vahidi as the central figure
Ahmad Vahidi thus finds himself at the center of a paradoxical dual image.
In the reporting by Axios, he appears as the man the US sought because they wanted to know if the IRGC would accept a deal.
In the narrative of Pepe Escobar, he appears as the man the American side attempted to approach in a far more aggressive manner.
In both cases, however, the conclusion is the same:
Washington considers Ahmad Vahidi and the leadership of the IRGC a crucial key to the outcome of the war.
The Mohsen Rezaee factor
Pepe Escobar then adds another important player: Mohsen Rezaee, former commander of the IRGC and, according to his narrative, a significant figure at the top of the new Iranian security structure.
The reference to Mohsen Rezaee carries political significance because it indicates that even if an official could be approached, that would not automatically mean the collapse of the IRGC structure.
The Revolutionary Guards are an institution, not merely a collection of personal relationships around one person.
This is likely the point where American strategy may have miscalculated.
From «speaking» to «fracturing»
If we combine the two revelations, a striking scenario emerges.
First, Washington seeks out Ahmad Vahidi because it does not know whether the IRGC will back negotiations.
Ahmad Vahidi responds that he supports them.
Then, according to the version of Pepe Escobar, the American side attempts to utilize the same channel to explore whether the leadership of the IRGC can be detached from Tehran.
And once again, according to Pepe Escobar, the attempt fails.
If this sequence is confirmed, the secret channel from Axios acquires far greater strategic significance.
It was not merely a channel to end the war.
It could have been simultaneously a tool for negotiation and an instrument for exploring the possibility of internally dismantling the Iranian regime.
The great contradiction and the failure of Donald Trump
The resulting picture is almost paradoxical.
Publicly, Donald Trump threatens Iran with military destruction, economic blockade, and political overthrow.
Behind the scenes, his administration is forced to turn to the commander of the IRGC himself to determine whether there is someone with whom an agreement can actually be made.
And according to Pepe Escobar, when Washington realized it could not easily break this mechanism, it attempted to buy it.
Axios documents the first part.
Pepe Escobar alleges the second.
The real question
The most important takeaway is not that «Donald Trump tried to bribe Ahmad Vahidi», which, for now, remains an unconfirmed claim without independent verification.
The most important point is that the US administration itself recognized it could not bypass the IRGC.
It needed Nechirvan Barzani to reach Ahmad Vahidi.
It needed a secret and encrypted channel.
And it needed to learn directly from the leadership of the IRGC whether the military structure of Iran would accept an agreement.
This reveals something very significant about the balance of power:
Washington can bomb Iran, threaten its economy, and demand capitulation, but to truly end the war, it must speak with those who have the ability to keep the Iranian state standing.
And here lies the true meaning of the Ahmad Vahidi affair.
Donald Trump may have attempted to speak with the IRGC.
Pepe Escobar claims he attempted to buy them.
Axios shows that Washington, in either case, had already arrived at the same strategic conclusion: without the IRGC, no agreement with Iran can be considered secure.
And perhaps that is the greatest problem of American strategy: the force that Washington tried to bypass turned out to be the exact force it was forced to speak with.
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