Nancy Youssef (Miami Herald) MANAMA, Bahrain -- Even as mainly Shiite Muslim protesters camp out in Pearl Square demanding major reforms, the deciding factor in the outcome for Bahrain could be neighboring Saudi Arabia.
Behind the scenes and away from the streets, Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally and top oil supplier, is seeking to return to the status quo in Bahrain - or at least to slow down calls for change. That Bahrain's Shiite majority could gain more rights and powers from the ruling Sunni Muslims, Saudis think, could lead to unrest among their own Shiites, who live in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province. In that case, reforms and economic incentives might not be enough to stop a movement from spreading there.
Bahrain is the first Persian Gulf country to be hit by the unrest that's sweeping the Middle East, and Saudi Arabia is one of the last U.S. allies in the region since the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia fell. Although Bahrain is a tiny island of less than a million, what happens here could unleash calls for change in the much larger and powerful Saudi Arabia. It's a case of Goliath fearing David's wrath.
At stake are oil prices, which are now at their highest since October 2008, and even relations with the United States, which is walking a fine line between promoting the will of the people and supporting a longstanding ally.
In Saudi Arabia, officials already have quashed several small attempts to launch protests against some government decisions. Three days after the revolt began in Egypt, for example, roughly 50 residents protested the government response to deadly floods in Jeddah. They were promptly arrested.
Protesters in Manama are calling for Bahrain to become a constitutional monarchy, rather than an absolute one. Such a shift probably would give the Shiite majority more power. As the Saudis see it, that represents instability for them; Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority could then rise up and ask for more freedoms its own.
Protesters in Manama threatened Wednesday to lash out at the Saudi regime if it thwarted their efforts, though they refused to give their names.
"If they stop us, we will go there," one protester yelled.
For Saudi Arabia, the best outcome in Bahrain is enough change to pacify protesters but not so much that it risks government structure, said James Denselow, a Middle East writer and former researcher for Chatham House, a policy research center in London.
"Instability could not get more on Saudi's doorstep than Bahrain," Denselow said. "The outcome that Saudi Arabia wants is ... for everybody to leave the streets and that small changes be managed by the elite. They want a slow process."
As with much of what happens in Bahrain, Saudi influence occurs under a veil of secrecy. But there have been some telling signs of the scale of Saudi impact. Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa left the country Wednesday for the first time since the unrest began to meet his Saudi counterpart, King Abdullah, who had just returned home hours earlier after three months of medical treatment in the U.S. and recovery in Morocco. Observers said they think that the Bahraini king consulted with the Saudis over what to do next.
Earlier in the week, the Saudi Council of Ministers said in a statement: "The kingdom will stand by the sisterly state of Bahrain with all its capabilities," which some Shiites in Bahrain interpreted as a threat to send military aid.
