Mahmoud Ahmadinejad didn't have a very good day today. First, Hassan Rowhani, a cleric who heads an influential Iranian think tank and is the former chief of the country's Supreme National Security Council had this to say about the Iranian president's big talk over Iran's increasing influence in the Middle East and the conclusions of the NIE:

To discuss this, we should see the proof of power.

The fact that we cannot open a letter of credit, is this power?

The fact that an Iranian student cannot study abroad in (his or her) chosen field, is that power?

The fact that the economic risks have grown, is that power?

The fact that banking activities have been restricted, is that power?"

Also today, popular former President Mohammad Khatami piled on with this gem before a packed hall of more than 1,000 students at Tehran University, where he delivered remarks on Ahmadinejad's anti-poverty strategy:

It is not right to reduce justice to economic justice. Such a justice spreads poverty and empties the purses of the people who should be used to make the country more powerful and more rich. We need to fight for economic justice but what is more important is the right of people to decide their own fate. These are the reforms that the people want."

The new conventional wisdom in Washington is that the NIE was a boost to Ahmadinejad. But these kinds of attacks on Ahmadinejad are likely to increase in the run up to the March 14 parliamentary elections. And they're an important reminder that, despite his blusterings, Ahmadinejad is anything but an all-powerful leader who reigns without dissent.