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"..Yet now, nearly six months after a contested presidential election that has riven the country more than at any time since the birth of the Islamic theocracy, a new narrative is arising around the Arab world in which Iran is no longer a political demigod. Beset in recent months by the bloody spectacle of regime enforcers stamping out pro-democracy protests, and by dozens of deaths, torture, and allegations of rape in secret prisons, Iran is losing influence among some of its friends in the region and stiffening opposition among foes.

Many analysts, in fact, believe the autocratic crackdowns in Iran may mark the end of a years-long arc of expanding Iranian and Shiite prominence across a wide swath of the Arab world. More important, they see the fallout coinciding with something far more fundamental: the possibility that the Islamic revolution, 30 years after its inception, is losing
its purity and potency – with important implications for the West, notably the US, at a time of geopolitical transition in the Middle East..."