Ebrahim Raisi was obsessed with the security of the people

Yet he had done an unusual amount of smiling that day, as he inaugurated, with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, the giant Qiz Qalasi dam on the Aras river. It marked a rapprochement between their countries. They had had their ups and downs, but today he had called Mr Aliyev a brother and a friend. Their co-operation, he said, would make their enemies despair.