Iran Ayatollah Warns Subordinates to Stop Bickering TEHRAN - In his clearest warning that political infighting by his subordinates must end, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Wednesday that their public disputes would be treated as treason. Complaining that the increasingly open public fights between the executive branch of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and high-ranking officials in the legislative and judicial branches were providing ammunition to "foreign media and enemies," the ayatollah, who has the last word on affairs of state in Iran, set the clearest red line ever to those running the country's day-to-day matters. "I warn the heads of the three branches to mind their own business," Ayatollah Khamenei said, according to Iranian news media accounts. He emphasized that "from now on," until presidential elections scheduled for June 2013, those "exploiting emotions of the people" would be guilty of "committing treason against the country." The warning sets up Ayatollah Khamenei to intervene in the continuous bickering that has pitted Mr. Ahmadinejad against the alliance of Sadegh Larijani, the head of the judiciary, and Ali Larijani, his brother and the Parliament speaker. The most recent public fight, in which Sadegh Larijani last week blocked Mr. Ahmadinejad from visiting an arrested aide in Evin prison in Tehran, is the tip of a much wider dispute, reflected in speeches and bitter letters that have been made public. The Larijani brothers are backed by leading Shiite Muslim clerics who fear that Mr. Ahmadinejad is working to curb their influence. In turn, the president, whose 2009 disputed re-election led to street protests by the mostly urbanized middle class, is increasingly portraying himself as a defender of human rights. In what appeared to be a move aimed at reducing the potential for more public spats, the government on Wednesday announced the reappointment of Gholam Hossein Elham as its official spokesman. The appointment could keep Mr. Ahmadinejad away from the limelight for some time to come, and the spokesman would also act as a shock absorber for criticism against the government and president, analysts said. "This is crisis management from our supreme leader," said Amir Mohebbian, an analyst whose reports are sometimes published on Ayatollah Khamenei's personal Web site. If they don't listen he may start legal procedures against them. The ayatollah's blunt warning differs from his past tendency to avoid increased pressure on Mr. Ahmadinejad. Whenever members of Parliament had tried to inflict damage on the president, they would retreat at the last moment, hinting that Ayatollah Khamenei had asked them to back down. Iranian news accounts of Ayatollah Khamenei's warning said he issued it during a meeting with high school students, a few days before the commemoration of the anniversary of the hostage taking at the United States Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979. Because of a leap year in the Iranian calendar and an Islamic holiday, the official commemoration of the event will be Friday. Despite rumors of behind-the-scenes talks between Iranian and American officials, Iran's leader said that during the "long fight between the Iranian nation and America," only Iranian resistance had succeeded. Ayatollah Khamenei also accused both American presidential candidates of "competing in their devotion for the Zionists" and said the Obama administration had enslaved the United States to Israel.