A day after Iran's parliament voted to take Ahmadinejad to court for taking over the ministry, the president handed the job to 54-year-old Mohammad Aliabadi. He has served as head of Iran's national Olympic committee, vice president in charge of physical education and head of the fishery organization.

The threat to take Ahmadinejad to court reflected the escalating power struggle between the president and the hard-line establishment that has turned on him in advance of parliamentary election next March and the presidential vote in mid-2013.

Lawmakers were infuriated when Ahmadinejad consolidated a series of ministries without parliamentary approval, fired the oil minister and named himself to the job. The move also technically put Ahmadinejad at the helm of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Iran holds the OPEC rotating presidency this year.

Iran typically earns about US$80 billion a year from crude oil exports, roughly 80 percent of its foreign revenue.
Also on June 2, cleric Mojtaba Zolnour, a top official with Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard, indirectly warned Ahmadinejad that the force might withdraw its support for him should he continue his disobedience of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters.

Khamenei reinstated the intelligence minister, and Ahmadinejad backed down. Since then the president has been under increasing attack by his rivals in conservative camp.