Iranians have long accepted that the leading clergy have deep pockets, but it is rare for insiders such as Mr Palizdar to name names. Some Western experts on Iran, such as Gary Sick, of Columbia University in New York, who served in the National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan, interpreted it as an extraordinary display of ambition by Mr Ahmadinejad. “At a minimum, [he] is carrying out a direct challenge to Khamenei and the old-guard leadership,” he wrote. “At a maximum, [it is] a slow-motion coup in which he gradually accumulates more and more power to himself and to the presidency.”