Iranian members of parliament issued a statement April 20 calling on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to obey an order from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to reinstate the head of the country's premier intelligence service. Heidar Moslehi, a senior Cabinet member heading the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), tendered his resignation April 17 following a rift with Ahmadinejad. Khamenei quickly intervened, rejecting the resignation and calling on Moslehi to continue in his position. At present, the situation is reportedly at a stalemate, with Moslehi said to be showing up for work while the president refuses to recognize him as MOIS chief. This is the second time since mid-2009 that Ahmadinejad has defied an order from Khamenei and run into problems with the MOIS. Moslehi is the second MOIS chief Ahmadinejad has forced out. Shortly after the June 2009 election fiasco, Ahmadinejad elicited strong criticism from his own ultraconservative camp when he appointed Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei — the president's closest friend, relative and political associate — as his first vice president. Mashaei, who is deemed too liberal, has issued several controversial statements over the years that have irritated the clerical establishment (for example, he recently promoted the idea of Iranian nationalism, as opposed to its Islamist character). Several senior clerics opposed the appointment, and Khamenei asked Ahmadinejad to remove Mashaei. Ahmadinejad resisted for a week, then shifted Mashaei to the position of adviser and chief of staff. Within days of this show of defiance, Ahmadinejad fired then-Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, accusing him of failing to adequately deal with the unrest that erupted after Ahmadinejad's controversial re-election. Ahmadinejad himself took over the MOIS for a short while, then appointed Moslehi. Since Mohseni-Ejei's departure, Ahmadinejad has engaged in a purge of the ministry, including four deputy ministers heading various MOIS departments. The firing of Mohseni-Ejei further exacerbated the Iranian regime's intra-hardliner rift. At the time, the commotion allowed Ahmadinejad to get away with it, especially with Khamenei not taking a strong stand. Within a month, Mohseni-Ejei was re-appointed prosecutor-general by newly appointed judiciary chief Mohammed Sadegh Larijani (another key opponent of Ahmadinejad). Since then, the president has consolidated his position over his opponents within the political establishment as well as those from the opposition Green movement. But the power struggle has quietly continued behind the scenes, with Ahmadinejad trying to accumulate power at the expense of everyone else, including Khamenei. That said, Ahmadinejad's political future remains uncertain. He is almost halfway through his final term as president, and it is not clear whether he will assume a key position in the state after leaving office, as two of his predecessors did (Khamanei and Expediency Council Chairman Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani). Ahmadinejad is not a cleric, a key disadvantage in a political system dominated by clerics. At a time when the power of the clerics appears to be weakening, Ahmadinejad will likely try to carve out space for himself somewhere in the system, using Mashaei in much the same way Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has used President Dmitri Medvedev to maintain political influence. He has earned the ire of both clerical and non-clerical political forces in Iran. After quietly dealing with some of Ahmadinejad's maverick moves in terms of appointments and policies, Khamenei has once again decided to take a firm stand, in this case over the resignation of the intelligence minister. It is unlikely that Ahmadinejad can resist for long, and he will likely be forced to accept Moslehi's continuing as head of the MOIS. However, tensions between the president and the supreme leader will probably continue, with control over the MOIS a key issue between the two. But even if Ahmadinejad ends up losing the battle, it will only enhance his stature. Standing up to the supreme leader to the point where Khamenei is only over-ruling him makes the president look good, while Khamenei appears reactive and unwilling or unable to take serious action against Ahmadinejad. Khamenei reportedly has plans to convert the MOIS from a ministry into an organization. As such, it would no longer come under the jurisdiction of the executive branch, which is controlled by Ahmadinejad, and its head would report directly to the supreme leader. STRATFOR has noted Khamenei's moves to gain more power over Iran's intelligence services, particularly in expanding the Supreme Leader's Intelligence Unit to control intelligence dissemination and conflict among agencies. In this ongoing intra-elite struggle, the MOIS plays an important role, providing great power to whoever controls it. From Khamenei's point of view, controlling the intelligence service allows him to check Ahmadinejad's attempts to enhance his power. For Ahmadinejad, controlling the MOIS provides him with a still-powerful organization that he can use to outmaneuver his opponents. There is yet another actor in this intelligence war — the intelligence arm of the country's elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC reports to Khamenei, but over the years it has become a power unto itself — perhaps the most powerful organ of the state. In the process, the IRGC has exploited the intra-elite struggles to enhance its own stature, especially making use of Ahmadinejad's moves. The MOIS and IRGC Intelligence — headed by Hossein Taeb, a cleric appointed by Khamenei — have been in competition over resources and jurisdiction. The use of rival intelligence agencies in partisan politics could undermine the overall intelligence capabilities of the Iranian state, especially at a time of both threat and opportunity on the foreign policy front, from Iraq to Lebanon to Bahrain. As intelligence services are pushed into politics, their leaders develop the tendency to tell the supreme leader what he wants to hear (in return for attention or promotions) rather than what he should hear — objective analyses. Concentrating intelligence activities under the supreme leader can also further insulate him from his people, making it harder to deal with unrest. Tensions between Iran's supreme leader and president can also have an adverse impact on foreign policy decision-making. With parliamentary elections scheduled for February 2012, this intra-conservative power struggle can be expected only to intensify over the next 10 months.