Saudi troops in Bahrain

Understandable in Realpolitik terms, but in my opinion an outrage and a disgrace:

“Saudi Arabia sent troops into Bahrain on Monday to help put down weeks of protests by the Shi’ite Muslim majority, a move opponents of the Sunni ruling family on the island called a declaration of war.”

Yes, I think the opposition is justified in calling this an act of war. Bahrain’s rulers can’t withstand the protests, so they import what are effectively organized foreign mercenary units to put down the protests.

And this is the sort of issue where Chomsky has (and deserves) a field day. Will the U.S. government demand the withdrawal of Saudi troops from Bahrain? Ha!

The people of Bahrain just got indirectly screwed by the West. The Saudis are our agents. If Egypt were smaller and weaker and had more oil and shared a border with Saudi Arabia, the Saudis would have moved in here too.

It also gives the Shi’a of Bahrain a perfectly good excuse to turn to Iran’s regime for moral support and possibly more, which is not a good thing.

All right, so now we know that Bahrain’s monarchy is officially a Saudi Protectorate. Bahrain’s protestors can forget those calls for a constitutional monarchy now. This is really appalling.