I am not one of those who were totally surprised by the impressive victory of Hamas. In fact, in an article published in Al-Sharq al-Awsat on January 11, entitled "After the disappearance of Sharon," I predicted not only Hamas' victory, but also that it would lead to the victory of the Likud in Israel's elections, thereby opening a new chapter of confrontation. Now that the first part of the prediction has come true, I am no longer totally sure about the second. But one prediction is guaranteed: The success of Hamas will boost the fortunes of the right in Israel, and the gulf between Palestinians and Israelis will widen.

A continuation of the present uneasy truce is not totally excluded in view of regional and international interventions, but the level of tension will certainly be higher. All will depend on how Hamas and Fatah resolve the contradictions between the mandate given to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to seek a peaceful two-state solution to the Palestinian cause, and the new mandate given to Hamas to liberate Palestine from the river to the sea and guarantee the return of six million Palestinian refugees to the homes they left in 1948. Islamic Jihad will do its best to test both mandates violently, and with every test the Likud Party will get a helping hand.

But tension on the Palestinian-Israeli front is only one small part of the much deeper strategic transformation that is taking shape in the Middle East, of which the Hamas victory is only one manifestation. In fact, Hamas' ascent to primacy in the Palestinian Legislative Council has contributed to a series of similar changes in the region that extends from Tehran to Cairo.

It began in Iran when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the Iranian presidential elections and completed the conservative fundamentalist hold on Iranian institutions and politics. Not much later the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt achieved an impressive electoral and political victory in the 2005 parliamentary elections. The Brotherhood gained 88 seats, or 19.81 percent of all elected seats, up from 17 seats or 3.82 percent in 2000. In a way, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood reflected a steady dynamic in Egyptian politics: The Brotherhood gained only eight seats in the 1984 elections and 36 in the 1987 elections. An informal legalization of the Brotherhood has taken place, and a sharp rise in their public stature has given them a permanent presence in the Egyptian and pan-Arab media. And by December 2005, the Iraqi elections showed the rise of Islamic fundamentalist groups in Shiite and Sunni parties.

In the Iranian, Egyptian, Palestinian and Iraqi cases the change was through democratic means and at the expense of secular, liberal and establishment political parties. Similar developments are taking place in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, where Hizbullah and versions of the Muslim Brotherhood are politically consolidating their status on the ground or underground.

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The reasons for this state of affairs are not under investigation here. Most likely they can be found in prolonged historical trends, along with developments among concerned countries in the post September 11, 2001 era. What is important, however, is to record the strategic trend that is taking root in the region and most probably is going to redefine all regional issues. It is different from the radical and violent trend that produced organizations and groups like Al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups. It involves much more established and organized social groups that are inspired by a religious and political ethos.

For these groups, the goal of the polity is salvation, the protection of the faith, and the implementation of God's word: the Sharia. Accordingly, they are seeking to seize the state machinery and use its powers to achieve long-term strategic goals that include restoring historical rights and correcting national and religious injustices. Iran is a good example, whereby a mixture of conservative internal politics and flamboyant external politics is coupled with a strong urge to obtain weapons of mass destruction. In time, Iran will seek to build the new front of "Momanaa" - a modern-day copy of the Rejection and Steadfastness Front of the 1980s, but this time in religious garb and featuring aggressive policies.

This shift in regional politics is most likely going to open far-reaching possibilities for regional realignments. The voting in the International Atomic Energy Agency for transferring the Iranian file to the Security Council might provide an early indicator of the new trends: Syria opposed the motion, Egypt supported it and Libya abstained - early signs of a more intense differentiation of alignments in a tenuous and ever-changing region. Attempts to couple regional issues with the Arab-Israel conflict will be confronted with efforts to decouple them.

For those who wish to live in interesting times, as the Chinese proverb says, they will get their wish!

Abdel Monem Said Aly is director of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter.