Bloomberg agitates Saudi, Bahraini Sectarian Divide

Bahrain May Be Uprising Too Far for Saudis Avoiding Iran’s Grip
By Glen Carey – Mar 4, 2011 7:53 AM MT

Saudi Arabia has watched revolts unfold in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. When it comes to Bahrain, the world’s largest oil exporter may not be a mere spectator.

Protests on the neighboring island, where the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet guards Gulf oil supply, are being overshadowed by the challenge to Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi. Yet they underscore the sectarian divide in the Muslim world between Shiites and Sunnis that puts Iran on one side and Saudi Arabia on the other in a region that holds about 55 percent of the world’s crude.

“Saudi Arabia is concerned about the expansion of the Shiite crescent,” said Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis. “The last thing Riyadh would want to see is Shiite rule in Bahrain. At the end of the day, Saudi Arabia would intervene militarily.”

Instability in Bahrain might affect oil prices more than the ouster of Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak a month later or the turmoil in Libya, according to Mustafa Alani, a regional security expert from the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center.

Mainly Shiite protesters in Bahrain are demanding democracy through free elections from their Sunni monarch. Thousands of demonstrators surrounded the state television headquarters in the capital, Manama, today, shouting slogans against the royal family, after several Shiites were injured in street clashes with Sunnis late yesterday, the Associated Press reported. …more