Ahmadinejad's spats

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is getting in a lot of spats with his clerics. Is he a gaffe-prone loose cannon or trying to paint himself as a self-righteous advocate for women? Will he try to circumvent the mullahs and grab absolute power?

The latter seems unlikely, and that it is mere pompousness leading him to make gaffes in the religious radicals' eyes. Remember, this comes shortly after Ayman Al-Zawahiri's public chiding of him.