Monday 9 January 2012 This would be a good time for the US and Europe to decline the ayatollah's kind invitation to be his faction's re-election agent The following three propositions are all true: in March, Iran is facing one of the most crucial elections in the history of the regime; it is doing so in an atmosphere which has become militarised, not just externally, but internally too – the Revolutionary Guards control Iran's oil industry, key business interests, the nuclear programme and the oil and gas infrastructure; and the more militarised the election gets, the more it will benefit the hardliners around the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He himself has called the vote a potential security challenge. Given this, why are the US and EU about to impose oil sanctions, which even if they do not go as far as Ron Paul's "act of war" will squeeze the source of 60% of the regime's revenue? Ayatollah Khamenei's reaction to the forthcoming
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