Saudi Arabia will withdraw most of its 1,200 troops from neighboring Bahrain by next week after a three-month mission to quell an uprising against the monarchy there, a Saudi official said on Tuesday.
I hope so. While I want the government to reform, our bases there are too important for me to want us to side against the government. We have too much to lose and Iran has too many opportunities to gain for me to make a stand for people power there.
Hopefully, this is just a close call that gets the Bahrain minority Sunnis to reform enough to keep the Shias invested in the current system.
UPDATE: Stratfor has more on this. Apparently, the Saudis won't go entirely and will build a base to quickly return across the causeway connecting Saudi Arabia with Bahrain.
I would like to object to the statement that Saudi Arabia has problems dealing with this issue because America is too "distracted" to contain Iran. That is a conscious decision by our president and not even Iran's continued efforts to kill Americans (3 in Iraq on Thursday) have persuaded him to treat Iran as an enemy rather than as a potential friend we just haven't done enough to make.
Indeed, it is almost as if Ahmadinejad and his sick regime's survival are a cause célèbre for some folks in Congress.
