Senior Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami issued a warning to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during an Friday sermon at Tehran University on April 29. Khatami said Ahmadinejad should "know that the majority vote for him was not absolute but conditional on his obedience toward the orders by the supreme leadership," adding, "The top of the system is the constitution, which has clarified the power structure." The cleric, an ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is deputy head of the Assembly of Experts, the clerical body with powers to appoint, hold accountable, and remove the supreme leader. This is not the first time Khatami has chastised Ahmadinejad for disobeying Khamenei. In a sermon on July 24, 2009, Khatami publicly reminded the president that the supreme leader's orders must be implemented without hesitation. At the time, Ahmadinejad was under fire for appointing his friend, relative and closest ally Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei to the post of first vice president. That matter was resolved when Ahmadinejad shifted Mashaei to the position of chief of staff. This time around there has been a serious escalation because of infighting over the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Ahmadinejad forced MOIS chief Heidar Moslehi to resign after the latter moved against one of the deputy ministers close to Mashaei. Khamenei swiftly countermanded Ahmadinejad and ordered that Moslehi be reinstated. The president has since then defied the order from the supreme leader (though Moslehi has been coming to work). Furthermore, Ahmadinejad has avoided public appearances and not attended Cabinet meetings for almost a week. According to some Iranian media, the president will make a speech on state television in the next few days, and there have been rumors that he may even resign. While it is unlikely Ahmadinejad will resign, such a move would merely be an attempt to force the supreme leader's hand in an increasingly high-pressure game of brinksmanship, of which control of MOIS is just one part. It is essentially about the balance of power within the Iranian political system: Ahmadinejad is the first president of the Islamic republic to assert himself to the point where he has emerged as the main center of power in the complex Iranian political structure — a hybridization of the Shiite notion of Velayet-e-Faqih, a state ruled by a jurist, and parliamentary democracy. Until fairly recently, Khamenei went out of his way to support Ahmadinejad, especially in the latter's re-election to a second term, which was marred by controversy. In fact, Khamenei has mostly allowed Ahmadinejad to have his way, especially as the president has dismissed multiple officials and appointed loyalists in their place, the most recent example being the firing of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki while he was on an overseas diplomatic mission. However, Ahmadinejad's move to get rid of Moslehi was too far for Khamenei. The supreme leader now fears the president could become a threat unless he is reined in — particularly now, with a weakened clergy and a rising military and new class of politicians, led by Ahmadinejad. The debate over the issue underscores the extent to which Ahmadinejad has accumulated power. Khatami's remarks about the need for the president to obey the wishes of the supreme leader are a rejoinder to the arguments coming from the presidential camp. Ahmadinejad's top media adviser, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, has said the statements of the supreme leader carry "moral" authority only, arguing that the president could choose whether he wanted to act on them or not. Khamenei's supporters stress that constitutionally, the supreme leader has the right of oversight. Khamenei himself recently in a speech said that he will intervene in matters of governance when he sees the need. "I won't allow, as long as I'm alive, an iota of deviation of this massive movement of the nation," Khamenei said in an April 24 speech broadcast on state television. The supreme leader is on the defensive and trying to counter the growing power of Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, is playing a shrewd game. First, he is exploiting the supreme leader's weakness and dependency on the president. Second, he is pushing the limits of his constitutional status, which gives the presidency much power and control over day-to-day governance. He has strongly positioned himself by skillfully making use of his image as a populist conservative and his alignment with the military. His control over the exchequer further allows him to seek support in society and within the institutions, especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which under his watch has been allowed a sizable share of state revenues. Ahmadinejad has grown powerful in other ways as well, including by leading an initiative to weaken the country's second-most-influential cleric, Expediency Council Chairman Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Khamenei supported the initiative, believing that the president shared his thinking on domestic and foreign policy. Also, Khamenei's effort to keep a check on Ahmadinejad's power has relied on the Larijani clan, which controls both the legislature and the judiciary, but the Larijani brothers do not have the same clout. Khamenei continues to control the Assembly of Experts, but it is still a clerical body, while Ahmadinejad largely derives his power from the non-clerical areas. This is where the clerics do not have good options without tampering with the system and removing the man they have supported to take back power from the reformists. Therefore, traditional clerics loyal to Khamenei fear Ahmadinejad's power, but they have no choice but to seek a negotiated settlement because of the fear that a prolonged struggle could damage an already weakened system. Even if he compromises, Ahmadinejad will emerge more powerful and will likely continue to increase pressure on Khamenei and his supporters, particularly the clergy, who will need to engage in some radical moves to deal with this rising power. Ultimately, this conflict between the religious and political centers of power is about the reshaping of the Iranian political system, specifically the hybrid between its clerical and republican parts and with the military benefiting from the struggle.