Who is, politically, in better shape? Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or his implacable opponent, US President George W. Bush?
Both leaders are conservative hawks. Both have recently crushed dissent at home and imposed their authority. But both face very considerable difficulties - political, economic and strategic. Of the two, however, the Iranian leader seems more buoyant and perky than his American nemesis.
In both Tehran and Washington, hardline conservatives have recently won a trial of strength over their more open-minded opponents. But it is by no means clear that they will retain this advantage for very long. In both countries, change is in the air, if not immediately, then certainly next year.
In Iran, this month's legislative elections have temporarily cemented the grip on power of Ahmadinejad and his allies. Following next month's second round run-offs, they are likely to control three quarters of the 290 seats in parliament. The remaining seats will be divided between moderate conservatives, critical of Ahmadinejad's populism, and reformist followers of former president Mohammad Khatami.
The relatively poor showing of the reformists is not because they have lost popular support, but because the Interior Ministry and the Council of Guardians - the regime's theocratic watchdog - disqualified hundreds of reform-minded candidates in pre-vote vetting, earning accusations from Washington and the European Union that the elections were neither free nor fair.
In Washington, however, the sudden resignation of Admiral William Fallon, overall commander of US forces in the Middle East, has been widely interpreted as a victory for the neo-cons over the "realists" in America's corridors of power. Indeed, it is seen as a crushing of dissent, not quite like Iran's perhaps, but just as significant in terms of strategic options.
Fallon was heard to argue - all too publicly for his own good - in favour of "engagement" with Iran, rather than the present policy of threats, sanctions and bluster; for a faster withdrawal of US troops from Iraq than Vice-President Dick Cheney and General David Petraeus, the commander in Iraq, were prepared to accept; and, in general, for a shift of America's strategic focus away from Iraq and Iran and towards Pakistan and Afghanistan, two theatres of conflict which Fallon seems to consider pose a greater danger to the US.
It remains to be seen whether the conservative victories in both Washington and Tehran can endure or whether they will soon be overturned. Bush is a discredited, lame-duck president, struggling to retain some measure of authority in his last months in office. If Barack Obama were to win the Democratic nomination - and then the presidency - US relations with Iran could well be transformed, on lines that Admiral Fallon might approve. Relations might at least be normalised, a dialogue started and ambassadors exchanged, even if the improvement does not go so far as the "grand bargain", which some commentators have hoped for.
Popular support
Ahmadinejad, in turn, is under attack at home, largely because of his ruinous economic policies. To win popular support he has plundered Iran's oil revenues with generous handouts. But the resulting inflation at over 20 per cent, as well as rocketing food and housing prices, have harmed the very people he hoped to help at the bottom of the social pyramid.
He may very well be held to account at next year's presidential elections. Powerful critics of his policies - like Tehran mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, former chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani (who was elected to parliament at Qom with a landslide majority), and Parliamentary Speaker Gholam Ali Hadad Adel - are all waiting to challenge Ahmadinejad for president, as indeed is the leading reformer, former president Mohammad Khatami.
Ahmadinejad's economic woes are bad, but they are nothing compared to those of the American president. Bush is crippled by a US banking and credit crisis, unprecedented since the Second World War.
The once almighty dollar has collapsed under his watch, and threatens to fall further. Against this background, the efforts of Stuart Levey, the neo-con undersecretary of the US Treasury, to undermine Iran's economy seem laughable. The US has imposed sanctions on two leading Iranian banks, Bank Melli and Bank Saderat, and last week froze the US assets of another bank - Future Bank of Bahrain - two thirds owned by Melli and Saderat.
These punitive measures are part of a wrong-headed US attempt to isolate Iran by undermining its relations with its principal trading partners across the Gulf. The figures, however, suggest that Levey's campaign has failed.
Worse still, from Washington's point of view, far from wanting to shun the Islamic Republic, the notion seems to be gaining ground among Gulf policy-makers that it might be a good idea to include Iran in some form of regional security structure.
The main reason Ahmadinejad is riding high lies in his controversial, high-risk nuclear policy. He has so far successfully resisted US attempts to force him to halt Iran's nuclear activities, in particular its programme of uranium enrichment, which could, potentially, lead to nuclear weapons. But this resistance comes at a price: an economic price because of the international sanctions, and a strategic price because of the faint, but still real, possibility of a US or Israeli attack.
No one really believes that Iran would actually use atomic weapons, if it ever managed to manufacture them. After all, any such use would result in instant annihilation of the Iranian nation. Nevertheless, possession of nuclear weapons, rather than their use, would have undoubted advantages from an Iranian perspective. It would not only protect Iran from attack by the US and/or Israel, but would also curb the hegemonic regional appetites and power - projection of these two countries - which is the real reason Iran's nuclear programme is seen as such a threat in Washington and Tel Aviv.
One way and another, Iran seems better placed than the US to retain and exercise long-term influence in the Gulf region. Once America's troops return home, and its calamitous neo-colonial adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan are brought to a close - as they must be sooner or later - Iran will be the neighbour with whom the Arabs will have to live, trade, work and coexist. Geography cannot be denied.
Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.
