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He added that Tehran’s merchants, who as a class were instrumental in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, should be praised for distancing themselves from the demonstrations.

Khamenei also denounced Western officials who thought the rial’s plunge showed Iranian weakness. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last week that the depreciation arose from decisions by the Iranian government, an allusion to Tehran’s refusal to curb its nuclear program.

“Are we worse off or you? In the streets of major European countries there are demonstrations day and night … The problems of the West are much more complicated than ours,” Khamenei said, alluding to Europe’s debt crisis.

“The West’s economy is frozen. You are worse off and you are moving towards collapse and recession. These problems cannot bring the Islamic Republic to its knees.”

Legislators announced on Wednesday that they had collected 102 signatures in favor of questioning Ahmadinejad in parliament and presented the motion to the deputy speaker. But there was no word on when this might happen.

Political infighting is not new in Iran’s ungainly multipolar power structure and there is no sign that the discontent poses a threat to Khamenei, who is Iran’s highest authority but has avoided blame for economic problems.

However, there are signs that government agencies are taking aim at each other over the crisis and this could backfire badly if it restricts Tehran’s ability to respond to economic issues.

Armed forces chief Hassan Firouzabadi said this week the central bank was primarily responsible for the currency crunch.

“The problems in the last few days were caused because some in the banking system did not pay attention and the central bank took some issues lightly,” Firouzabadi said on Monday, according to the Fars news agency.

Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi was quoted as blaming the rial’s descent on poor coordination between government bodies and a government failure to heed predictions made by his ministry as long ago as April 2011, Mehr news agency said.