I was going to write a post about why Ahmadinejad won't last three years. Bernard Henri-Levy, the French philosophe, beat me to it, with far more eloquence. Have a look.

One of the Indyk's questions at Brookings was whether the unrest in Iran had reached the beginning of the end, or, in Churchill's famous formulation, only the end of the beginning.  Maloney punted by saying "I'll split the difference," i.e. its impossible to tell.  True, nobody really knows, but people don't pay you to explain that-- I could've gotten the same basic response form my grandmother.  

I'll take the long view.  It's only the end of the beginning.  And this revolution, even if if the Ayatollah is able to hold it off temporarily, will have reverberations for years to come.  The Emperor has no clothes, and dictators everywhere are shaking in their shoes.