The Trump Administration Has Been Negotiating With The Wrong People In Iran This Entire Time

April 20, 2026 by Michael



It turns out that the Iranian officials that the U.S. has been negotiating with do not actually have the power to make a peace deal. So this may help to explain why there has been so much confusion. The truth is that the U.S. has been negotiating with the wrong people in Iran this entire time, and the Trump administration is finally starting to realize this. Unfortunately, as you will see below, those that are now in charge in Iran are extreme hardliners. They are not inclined to compromise at all, and that is really bad news for the entire planet, because President Trump is warning that it is “highly unlikely” that the ceasefire will be extended if Iran does not agree to a peace deal by tomorrow night…

Speaking Monday to Bloomberg, President Trump reiterated that the U.S. blockade would not be dropped until a final peace deal with Iran is reached, and he told the news outlet it was “highly unlikely” that he would extend the current ceasefire beyond its expiration on Tuesday night U.S. time if no agreement is nailed down.
As I discussed yesterday, Trump has publicly stated that “the whole country is getting blown up” if Iran does not accept the deal that he has put on the table.
Trump is certainly willing to do more fighting if that is what it takes to reach an acceptable conclusion to this crisis, and he is pledging that he will not make enormous compromises just to get some sort of a deal done…
Only a day after threatening that Iran would be “getting blown up” unless the regime signed a U.S.-backed deal, the president on Monday said he’s in no rush to reach an agreement with Tehran.
“The Democrats are doing everything possible to hurt the very strong position we are in with respect to Iran,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social, noting that Democrats “like to say that I promised 6 weeks to defeat Iran.”
The president insisted that from a military standpoint, it was “far faster” than six weeks to defeat Iran. Still, he said, “I’m not going to let them rush the United States into making a deal that is not as good as it could have been.”
Of course the Iranians are in no mood to do much compromising either, and they have made that abundantly clear.
And it turns out that the people that we have been negotiating with do not actually have the power to agree to a deal.

According to Axios, one U.S. official is admitting that the Trump administration “thought they were negotiating with the right people”, but now they have figured out that wasn’t actually true…
A US official said Washington is uncertain who is in charge in Iran as efforts continue to secure a deal and extend the ceasefire, Axios reported on Monday.
“We aren’t sure who’s in charge and neither do they. That’s going to have work itself out,” it quoted the official as saying.
“We thought they were negotiating with the right people, they had reached the cocktail of what they had agreed to, what could be announced. But what happened is the Iranian team went back and the IRGC and those kinds of people said ‘oh, no, no. You don’t speak for us,’” a second senior administration official said.
“Now they have a real divide over there between these factions and we’re not sure who’s going to win it. We hope the team we negotiated with will.”
Weeks ago, I told my readers that the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Ahmad Vahidi, is running the show in Iran.
Now the mainstream media is finally starting to catch up. The following comes from Fox News…
As President Donald Trump’s deadline for Iran to decide whether to extend a two-week ceasefire between the countries approaches, attention is increasingly turning not to Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, but to a shadowy Revolutionary Guard commander with a long record of terror, repression and hardline ideology.
Ahmad Vahidi, recently elevated to the top of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite paramilitary force within Iran’s military, is emerging as one of the most powerful men in Iran and, according to analysts, one of the key figures likely deciding whether Tehran resumes fighting or continues talks.
There isn’t going to be any deal unless Vahidi approves.
Unfortunately, Vahidi is “considered a radical even within the regime’s hardline elite”…
“By any standard, Vahidi is considered a radical even within the regime’s hardline elite, and his rise is a warning that Tehran’s war machine now calls the shots,” Lisa Daftari, foreign policy analyst and journalist, told Fox News Digital.
“Putting someone with such a bloody and murderous record at the top of the Revolutionary Guard Corps confirms that the regime is not moderating under pressure. On the contrary,” Daftari added, “it is doubling down on men whose careers are built on hostage‑taking, assassinations, and domestic repression. By any standard, Vahidi is considered a radical even within the regime’s hardline elite, and his rise is a warning that Tehran’s war machine now calls the shots.”
Vahidi isn’t going to give Trump what he wants.
I suppose the U.S. and Israel could try to take Vahidi out, but the upper ranks of the IRGC are filled with other extremists that are just like Vahidi.
Theoretically, Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is supposed to have final decision making power, but it appears that he is either dead or incapacitated.

So the IRGC is in control now, and that is not likely to change any time soon.
I know that a lot of people out there are desperately hoping for a peace deal with Iran.
But it doesn’t appear that one is in the cards.
And if a deal is not made before the deadline, Trump is warning that it will mean “lots of bombs start going off”…
President Donald Trump told PBS News on Monday morning that if the ceasefire with Iran expires Tuesday, “then lots of bombs start going off.”
The statement came during a phone call with White House correspondent Liz Landers focused on the Iran war, as a U.S. delegation is preparing for more peace talks.
The Iranians have been preparing for the next phase of the war too.
They still have thousands upon thousands of missiles and drones at their disposal, and oil and gas infrastructure throughout the Middle East is extremely vulnerable.
Beyond that, I am entirely convinced that the IRGC still has quite a few other ways that they could dramatically escalate the conflict.
So let us hope that some sort of a diplomatic miracle happens, because we are rapidly approaching a point of no return.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

The Trump Administration Has Been Negotiating With The Wrong People In Iran This Entire Time