It was as if I had landed in a different country when I arrived in Iran four days after the presidential election.

In February, I had toured several of its cities, from the dreamy Isfahan to the austere Qom, met clerics, presidential advisers and reformist politicians. The Islamic regime was in a confident mood, convinced its nuclear programme was too advanced to be stopped, and its regional influence, from Iraq to Afghanistan, to Lebanon and Palestine, a source of power.