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There are persistent reports about a plan being hatched by Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani to oust Ayatollah Khamenei as the supreme leader of Iran. These reports state that Rafsanjani is lobbying the clergy in Qom, with the hope that they would back this plan.

Legally speaking, such a move is possible. The assembly of experts, which comprises 86 senior clergy, can technically do this if enough votes are collected. Although Rafsanjani would be looking to use the legal powers of the assembly of experts to replace Khamenei as the supreme leader, many of his supporters would see this as nothing short of a new revolution.

To see whether Rafsanjani has the leverage to do this with the help of the clergy, we must first look at their power. In his recent article for Newsweek,...