As a result of this crisis, the head of the European Central Bank (ECB), Mario Draghi, is caught in a horrible bind. He is itching to kick off a trillion-euro blast of quantitative easing on January 22 to head off the deflationary forces that threaten to lock the eurozone into a Japanese-style trap. To make any difference, this must entail the purchase of sovereign debt. Yet Mr Draghi can hardly agree to buy Greek bonds three days before the likely election of a party that has vowed to repudiate that same debt. Nor can he exclude Greece’s bonds from the purchases, for to do so would be to pre-empt democracy.