Articles

The peaceful, side-by-side rise of China and India has been taken for granted in many quarters. But tensions between the two giants are mounting, and Washington would do well to take note. On June 8, New Delhi announced it would deploy two additional army divisions and two air force squadrons near its border with China. Beijing responded furiously to the Indian announcement, hardening its claim to some 90,000 square kilometers of Indian territory that China disputes.

These are hopeful and perilous times in Tehran. Ever since the blatant fraud of Iran's June 12th presidential election, popular opposition to that country's ruling clerical order has been on the rise, leading more and more observers to wonder whether Iran could really be on the cusp of another revolution. Maybe so. But any analysis of the current situation in Iran must begin with the acknowledgement that revolutions, properly understood, are notoriously hard to predict.

What a difference a few days can make. Last week, ahead of Iran's presidential elections, I wrote here that the outcome would matter little in the grand scheme of Iranian politics. I may have spoken too soon. Since Friday, that country has descended into political turmoil of a type not seen since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The cause is a rigged election that has catalyzed widespread outrage among ordinary Iranians and threatened the legitimacy of the ruling regime in Tehran.

Tomorrow, Iranians will go to the polls to elect a new president in what has become the most anticipated political event in that country since the Islamic Revolution three decades ago. The results, however, are already a foregone conclusion. Whoever ends up becoming president will have little real power -- and even less influence over Iran's geostrategic direction.

When President Obama delivers his long-awaited speech in Egypt on Thursday, he will be fulfilling his inaugural pledge to "seek a new way forward" with the Muslim world. But finding areas of mutual interest may prove far more difficult than the president imagines. That is because, in recent years, the Middle East has seen the crystallization of regional politics around two distinct ideologies. Call it the new bipolarity.