Ahmadinejad actually carried out a “personnel revolution” to change the composition of his Cabinet of Ministers. In that sense, we can agree with the interpretation of Middle East Institute President Evgeny Satanovsky, who said that Ahmadinejad had “made preparations for an internal coup by changing the format of power,” which shows that the clergy has lost influence in the country. Many experts believe that the top brass of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps and the leadership of the Basij militia, which is headed by Ahmadinejad, could now take power in Iran. Incidentally, that may create an extremely favorable context for the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear problem at the talks scheduled for late January in Istanbul. If they actually succeed in achieving the breakthrough everyone expects in Iran’s relations with the rest of the world, Salehi will have a real chance of gaining a firm foothold on his new position.

This article was originally in Russian and I found it here on his LJ journal_neo. While the translations are sometimes a little difficult for me to follow, he usually gives a completely different perspective than what you find in the US or British media.