Is this really the end for Ahmadinejad?

Casual Iran observers tend to portray the country’s most prominent political division as that between fundamentalist hard-liners and secular moderates. In reality, however, the struggle for Iran’s future is a three-way fight waged by the different branches of conservatives that control the parliament, the presidency, and the theocracy. The Green Movement may have stalled, but the parliamentary opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has only grown stronger and more assertive over the past year — culminating in a recent push to charge the president with abuses of power warranting impeachment. Those efforts are coming to a halt under orders from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who fears that the parliament’s attempt to assert itself against the president will also be at the expense of his own power base, the country’s conservative mullahs.

In fact, this isn’t the first round of infighting among Iran’s leaders. In July 2009, legislators warned Ahmadinejad that they would seek to oust him as the chief executive if he continued acting in an autocratic manner. Ahmadinejad responded by claiming the executive branch is the most important one of the government.

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