Over the past eight years, Iran's conservative leadership has effectively tightened its hold on power, thwarting aftempts at political reform. It has centralised decision-making, strengthened the Revolutionary Guard, invested in new strategic weapons, built ties of patronage and effectively used economic levers to assert control. The conservatives' consolidation of power now constitutes the framework of Iran's power politics, which will in turn determine the nature and scope of internal political developments after the 2005 presidential elections, the country's response to outside pressures regarding the nuclear issue, and the kind of government which is likely to evolve in the Islamic Republic.