DONALD WHO?:

Still, in the perennial struggle between hardliners and reformists, the reformists seem in some ways to be gaining the upper hand. Buoyed by gains in the parliament elected in the spring, President Hassan Rouhani has emerged from the hardliners' clutches. On November 4th he publicly denounced Mr Larijani's muzzling measures, and called for greater press freedom. He defied powerful ayatollahs in Iran's holy cities of Mashhad and Qom, insisting scheduled concerts (of traditional music) should go ahead despite their threats. "None of my ministers should give up in the face of pressure," he said.

Hardliners recently sought to arrest Abdol Rasul Dori Esfahani, an advisor to the team that negotiated last year's nuclear deal, for spying, but were quickly over-ruled. And the economy is showing signs of improvment as (non-American) foreign companies start to invest. Oil exports in October were up almost threefold on the previous year. Iran needs to generate 1.2m jobs a year to employ the young who join the workforce and manages only half of that. But at least now there is some hope.

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