The threat of war is empowering the Islamic republic’s hardliners

Mr Pezeshkian has appointed Western-orientated and -educated men to negotiate with the West and try to ease sanctions, but he has retained hardliners to run internal affairs. His interior minister is a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander who has suppressed protests against the regime. He has kept his hardline predecessor’s intelligence minister despite the numerous breaches under his watch, most recently the assassination of Hamas’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. The vice-president and head of Iran’s atomic agency also keeps his job.