“Like the prisoner swap deal, the revelation of an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi envoy to Washington on U.S. soil is a sign of the dramatic changes in the Middle East.”

 Two major events took place Tuesday in the Middle East. First, Israel and Hamas reached a deal in which captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been held in the Gaza Strip since 2006, will be exchanged for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel. Then within the hour of the initial reports about the prisoner swap deal, U.S. authorities announced they had charged two individuals allegedly working on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States in Washington.

There is no evidence to suggest the two incidents are linked, but both illustrate the massive changes sweeping the region.

Indirect talks between Israel and Hamas to secure the release of Shalit have been taking place for years. In the past, all such parleys failed to result in an agreement largely because Israel was not prepared to accept Hamas’ demand that 1,000 or so Palestinians (many jailed for killing Israeli citizens) be released. But the political landscape in the region has changed immensely since 2009, the last time the two sides seriously deliberated over the matter.

The unprecedented public unrest sweeping across the Arab world in 2011 undermined decades-old autocratic political systems. From Israel’s point of view, the fall of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the threats to the stability of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad represent serious risks for Israel’s national security, and Israel’s decision to agree to a prisoner swap deal is informed by the new regional environment.

It will be some time before the entire calculus behind the move becomes apparent. What is clear even now is that the prisoner swap deal has implications for Israel, Hamas, intra-Palestinian affairs and Egypt. Securing the release of Gilad Shalit will boost Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s standing at home. The move also could help Egypt’s military leaders domestically, who can claim their intervention brokered the deal (though with all the other turmoil in Egypt and November elections approaching, the Palestinian issue is a secondary concern). For Hamas, obtaining the release of more than 1,000 prisoners could help it gain considerable political support among Palestinians and as a result could complicate its power struggle with its secular rival Fatah. This kind of concrete result compared to any potential symbolic victory from Fatah’s recent bid for U.N. recognition could reflect unfavorably on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. And in successfully completing a deal with Israel, Hamas can also portray itself as a rational actor, nudging the Islamist militant movement closer to legitimization.

Like the prisoner swap deal, the revelation of an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi envoy to Washington on U.S. soil is a sign of the dramatic changes in the Middle East. The details of the alleged plot raise more questions than they answer, but already news of the plot has complicated the Islamic republic’s already-complex push for regional dominance.

In accusing the Iranian security establishment of plotting to murder the ambassador of Saudi Arabia, its biggest regional rival, on the soil of its nemesis the United States, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama may be showing it intends to take a harder line with Iran. We have already seen tensions between Riyadh and Tehran rise to unprecedented heights. Depending on the Iranian regime’s actual involvement, some in U.S. government circles may even consider the plot an act of war on the part of Tehran.

At this early stage it is not clear how Iran will respond to the U.S. allegations beyond strongly denying it was involved in any such plot, but it has a number of places where it can choose to escalate matters — Iraq, Bahrain, Lebanon to name a few. Iraq is the most significant, and it is already a battleground for influence between Washington and Tehran. The United States has slightly less than 50,000 troops in the country and wants to leave behind a significant residual force after the end-of-2011 pullout deadline. Iran wants to see all U.S. forces leave by Dec. 31, and it can deploy both military proxies and significant political influence in its western neighbor to block American efforts.

Though it is too early to say what the long-term consequences (if indeed there are any) of the United States accusing Iranian government-linked elements of trying to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador on American territory and Israel reaching a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas will be, they demonstrate how rapidly the situation is changing in the Middle East at a time of enormous uncertainty.

Stratfor