Newly empowered by the oil price boom which has put an extra $30 billion into Iran's treasury in the last 12 months, the Iranian religious authorities have now swept away the remnants of the reformist civilian government that won the last two presidential elections. All three main arms of the Iranian state, the government, the Supreme Council of the religious leadership, and the Pasdaran-Basij security force and power base, are now in the hands of militant Islamic hard-liners who see the U.S. and Israel as their mortal enemies.
