Bahrain is a small Gulf kingdom. Whether it is more immersed in oil or in the warm waters of the archipelago, it is up to the wind of history to decide it; it depends on the courses and reports of the chronicles.
As an offshoot of Saudi Arabia, it shares with the Saud dynasty the political destiny of a recent wealth, damned by geography that has made it more strategic than anthropized.
Bahrain is joined to Saudi Arabia by the King Fahd Causeway, the raised road on the sea that acts as an umbilical cord between two rigid and fragile monarchies at the same time. If the name was not enough to speak of Saudi intrusiveness, there are three fundamental aspects that unite Manama in Riyadh:
- the strong traditional Sunni imprint of real power;
- the importance of oil for the survival of the kingdom;
- the common Persian enemy who blows on the fire from the other side of the Gulf.
Around the latter, the whole geopolitics of the region has been rotating for more than 30 years, that is when, with the birth of the Cooperation Council, a clear division was established between the two shores of the Gulf.
The name could already be discussed: the Arabian Gulf for the Arabs on the western shore; Persian Gulf for the Iranians of the eastern side. In addition to the definitions, the bitterness is more than real: from the 1981, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and the Emirates form a consortium whose purpose is to counteract Iranian expansionism without resorting to the help of the older Arab brothers.
It was this last assumption that influenced the foreign policy choices of the Gulf monarchies up to the present day: despite the copious aid to Sunni Iraq in the war against Iran, the Baathist "socialism" in Baghdad gave no guarantees. The choice to make commune with the USA was born precisely in this context, up to the sublimation occurred in the 1990 with the invasion of Saddam of Kuwait.
Iranian expansionism, considered dangerous by the Arabs above all from a demographic point of view, actually has a religious, therefore social and political, substrate. As a stronghold of world Shiism, Tehran is the godmother of all the followers of Ali scattered in the Islamic world. About 700.000 citizens of Bahrain (on total 1.400.000) is of Shiite Muslim faith. Not only: Manama is only 100 km from al Qatif, the city of Arabia, the heart of Saudi Shiism. It has been known that the revolt syndrome ruins the sleep of the royal home of the small island state since the time it was freed from British rule.
The tensions between Iranians and Arabs of the Cooperation Council have always been a constant in the chronicles of the Gulf. In particular, Manama is at the center of Tehran's invectives to be the heart of Naval Support Activity, the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet, reborn in the 90 years and became a bastion of Washington's interests in the region. 
Not surprisingly, when in the 2011 the Middle East was shaken by the so-called Arab springs, the crisis in Bahrain came a step away from the overthrow of King Bin Āl Khalīfa. Behind the armed uprising, Iran was blowing and Saudi Arabia was acting behind its suffocation, which for the occasion sent a thousand soldiers to the brother archipelago.
The scenario was repeated in January 2016 when the death sentence of the Shiite imam al Nimr renewed the clashes between Shiites and Sunnis, resulting in direct friction between Tehran and Riyadh. Bahrain once again found itself involved.
News bounced in the last hours from the Gulf speak of the arrest in Bahrain of the Ayatollah Qassim, a major exponent of the opposition to the royal house of Manama. The fact would be the basis of the protests of Iran and the consequent threat of direct intervention by the mouth of General Suleimani, head of the units Q'uods of the Pasdaran, created for the diffusion beyond the border of the Khomeinist revolutionary creed.
The script is not new: the tension rises, i Pasdaran they stir around discrimination against Shiites, the Fifth Fleet and the West in theory prepare themselves.
But is the scenario credible? Is a new conflict in the Gulf a realistic hypothesis? Above all, how far can Iran go against the small kingdom of Bahrain?
For at least three reasons, war is not convenient to anyone.
Iran, after the signing of the nuclear agreements, has no immediate advantages to raise the tension with the Arabs in addition to a manageable measure. For Tehran it is more useful to put salt on the wounds between the United States and Israel, playing the role of the "necessary enemy". Tel Aviv is paradoxically close to the Sunni Arabs in anti-Iranian policies and sees every Western settlement toward Tehran as smoke in the eyes. By virtue of this fact, the big voice of Iran against the Arab allies of the USA is only an instrumental stance from the great importance in internal politics, but sterile on the level of the international one. Iran does not agree with a solidification of the already surreal Saudi-Israeli agreement.
In a logic of regional power, Iran rather prefers to mark the territory, knowing that it is the only political military alternative to the geopolitical power of Riyadh and the only source of regional stability in view of the war in Syria, in Iraq and the conflict creeping between Shiites and Sunnis.
On the Arab side the music does not change. Behind Manama there are the Gulf monarchies and planetary interests that tend to all but a war. The rise in tension would affect the price of the barrel, which on American pressure is artificially kept low by Saudi Arabia and its closest allies. Bringing the prices back up would help Iran (and the Russian ruble), thwarting Washington's efforts in recent years.
King Bin Āl Khalīfa for now so he can sleep peacefully. The biggest enemy of the Arab Sunni world, Iran, has grown enormously in recent years, clearing itself of a long quarantine. It is the primary interest of Iran not to squander this acquired heritage. It is not anyone's immediate interest in this state of affairs.
(photo: BNA)
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