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Since it began late last month, the turmoil taking place in Egypt has spawned no shortage of expert commentary here in the United States. Some observers have argued that, despite the current ferment in Cairo, strongman Hosni Mubarak will stubbornly cling to power and ride out the storm. Others, however, have come to question the utility of America's historic backing for the Mubarak regime—and counseled unequivocal support for its overthrow. Still others have taken the long view, seeing the Egyptian tumult as a belated vindication of the "Bush doctrine" of democracy promotion.

Precious few, however, have bothered to ask exactly what it is that ordinary Egyptians are after. They should, because—beyond the general dissatisfaction with the Mubarak regime now visible on the Egyptian "street"—the values and beliefs of the protestors are likely to have a profound influence on the nature of the political order that will eventually emerge there.

On that score, it turns out, there's ample reason for pessimism.

When the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad was engulfed by the “Arab Spring” last March, many waxed optimistic that regime change in Syria wouldn’t be long in coming. But ten months into the ensuing civil war, Assad’s regime shows no signs of fading away quietly. To the contrary, it has doubled down on repression, waging an extended campaign of official brutality against its own people in its bid to remain in power. As of mid-January, the death toll from Syria’s uprising had topped 6,000, with no let-up in sight.

Call it the Great Game, round three. The first such contest, famously chronicled by Rudyard Kipling, involved the 19th century struggle for dominance between the British and Russian empires over access to India and its lucrative trading routes. The second centered on the post-Soviet scramble for resources and influence in energy-rich Central Asia. Today, a third such round of geopolitical competition is emerging in South Asia, spurred by the vast energy potential of the post-Soviet space and the uncertain political disposition of Afghanistan.

Last month, this competition took a giant step forward when Afghan President Hamid Karzai met with the presidents of Turkmenistan and Pakistan, as well as with India's oil and gas minister, in the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat. The meeting netted an agreement to begin construction of a new natural gas route known as the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline in two years' time.

Practically overnight, it seems, the "Jasmine Revolution" that has swept over Tunisia has reshuffled the geopolitical deck in the greater Middle East.

Over the span of less than three weeks, protests over unemployment and political restrictions in the sleepy North African nation became a nationwide phenomenon, challenging the country's long-serving president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and his ruling Constitutional Democratic Rally. In the face of this widespread dissatisfaction, Ben Ali blinked, making a number of major political concessions—among them, announcing he would step down as president once his term was up in 2014, and putting curbs on the national military's use of force in dealing with the protests (thereby effectively giving the opposition free reign of the streets). Rather than mollify his opponents, however, these conciliatory measures only served to embolden them, and less than 24 hours later Ben Ali had fled the country for the relative safety of Saudi Arabia. Since then, political turmoil has reigned, as remaining politicians have attempted to cobble together a durable interim government in the face of ongoing public discontent.

In the process, Tunisia's popular uprising has become a model of sorts. The catalyst for Tunisia's turmoil—the self-immolation of an unemployed 28-year-old vegetable seller—already has spurred copycats throughout the region (specifically, in Egypt, Mauritania and Algeria). And in many quarters, there is new hope of movement toward true democracy in the historically-stagnant Middle East. "Tunisia is now the model to follow for all Arabs," one hopeful Algerian has told Reuters. "The time for dictators and dictatorships is over."

Are Iran's democratic stirrings truly a thing of the past? Ever since the so-called Green Movement coalesced in the wake of the country's fraudulent June 2009 presidential vote, Western observers have rushed to write its epitaph.

Over the past year, more than a few Iran watchers have argued that the internal contradictions within Iran's opposition movement doom it to failure and that, as a result, Washington has no alternative but to engage with Iran's ayatollahs. Similarly, some media outlets, in reporting the Green Movement's lackluster showing during Ashura celebrations in mid-December, have suggested that Iran's once-vibrant democracy drive has run out of gas. Still others have concluded that, at least when it comes to mobilization and mass protest, the Green Movement should now be considered largely defunct.

But is it? Unquestionably, the wave of opposition that swept over Iran in the summer of 2009 has receded significantly. Organizationally, Iranian democrats' lack of sustained leadership and the absence of a unifying common vision have served to undermine their long-term cohesion. Practically, these opposition activists gradually have been cowed into passivity by the widespread brutality of the regime's domestic militia, the Basij. Any yet, if the Iranian government's recent machinations are any indication, the powers-that-be in Tehran are far less certain than are Western foreign-policy experts that Iran's democratic impulses have withered on the vine.