text: (CNN) -- Iran's vital oil industry appears to be the latest front in a power struggle between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei -- a fight that overseas analysts say the colorful president appears to be losing. 
  
  Ahmadinejad is trying to retain control of Iran's Oil Ministry despite a ruling by the country's top judicial body that he can't serve as its acting chief. It's the latest in a series of unusually public squabbles between Ahmadinejad and allies of Khamenei, the Islamic republic's clerical leader, in recent weeks. 
  
  Khamenei backed Ahmadinejad through the tumult that followed his hotly disputed 2009 re-election, urging Iranians to accept the results of the balloting when protesters in the streets declared it a fraud. He presided over a crackdown on the demonstrations, during which security forces were unleashed on crowds and activists were prosecuted and jailed. 
  
  But elements throughout the government have moved to check Ahmadinejad's efforts to replace top officials and have gone after the president's closest advisers, U.S. analyst Alireza Nader told CNN. 
  
  "I think it's a symptom of the general dissatisfaction with President Ahmadinejad that his powers and movement are being curtailed by the various power centers in Iran," said Nader, an expert on Iranian politics at the RAND Corp., an American think tank. 
  
  The outspoken Ahmadinejad has long been a lightning rod for Iran's critics. But Haleh Esfandiari, director of Middle Eastern studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, said he may be left a "lame duck" after butting heads with Khamenei. 