Hard centres.

Mohsen Rezai, a senior member of the Expediency Council in Iran believes that Iran will not become a repressive dictatorship. Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of a hardline daily, demurs; he predicts the "turbulent" elimination of Iran's largest reform party from public life. Both men are beholden to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and their disagreement reflects the unusual, and crucial, pressures on Iran's supreme leader. Conservatives, rattled by Muhammad Khatami's threat to resign as president if they do not hand over power to him and his reform movement, are tugging Mr Khamenei, also a conservative, in two directions: Mr Rezai and his allies pull him towards pragmatism; hardliners towards despotism. The hardliners longed to unleash their armed thugs on the recent student demonstrations, provoked by a death sentence handed to Hashem Aghajari, a freethinking academic.