Iran: Judicial Investigator Publically Accuses Ayatollahs of Corruption

In Global voices here via War&Piece, with a comment by former NSC Gary Sick:

"As some of you know, I have been arguing for some time that Ahmadinejad is carrying out, at minimum, a direct challenge to Khamenei and the old guard leadership; or, at maximum, a slow motion coup in which he gradually accumulates more and more power to himself and to the presidency. The firing of Larijani -- the personal representative of the Supreme Leader and Iran's lead negotiator on the nuclear file -- and his replacement by a crony of Ahmadinejad, was an extraordinary display of chutzpah and naked ambition. The fact that he got away with it essentially unscathed is even more astonishing. Recently Ahmadinejad started talking loudly and openly of cronyism and nepotism and corruption -- his strongest arguments in the presidential election nearly four years ago. And now, when challenged to "put up or shut up," he sends out one of his own cronies to denounce virtually the entire ruling elite, notably including the clergy, seemingly unconcerned that the accusations lead back directly to Khamenei himself. (Of course, almost all Iranians believe these charges, whether they are true or not, and they put his opponents on the defense while he charges ahead.) [...] Those who have written off Ahmadinejad in the coming election have a lot of explaining to do. He is a ferocious competitor, an edgy populist who wins the hearts of his (lumpenproletariat) countrymen even while he is demolishing the economy, and a supremely ambitious politician who is a threat to the entire post-revolutionary establishment -- even as it looks on in bewilderment and, may one say, impotence."