The last time when I was in Bahrain in April 1995 there was an episode of Shiite protesting that occasionally led to incidents of violence. Helicopters were flying over Manama, there were a couple of pillars of smoke rising in the air, and from a distance of about 400 meters away I saw a traffic control point with an APC or two. I wasn't particularly concerned about my personal safety and just went about my business as usual -- it wasn't as though it was Normandy or anything like that.

I was there because the heaviest rainfall in Bahrain since 1945 had caused flooding in a warehouse next to the U.S. Navy base there that contained U.S. Army war reserve medical stuff. (Over there they don't build stormwater drainage systems like we do because they rarely need them.) The damage to the medical supplies was negligible but I found holes torn in the roof of the warehouse that had been caused by high winds during the storm. I told the Navy about it because their contracting office was the organization leasing the facility.

During the period of '94-'95 when I went back and forth to Bahrain I saw occasional news stories about Saudi crackdowns on Shiites living on the east coast of Saudi Arabia by the Persian Gulf. The stories invariably said the troubles were caused by Iranian provocation. I don't know whether that was actually true or just something the Saudis were saying. I'd like to see a map of the region that shows the percentages of Shiites living in the coastal areas of eastern Saudi Arabia, vis-a-vis the Sunnis. It would also be interesting to see the same thing about the other smaller Gulf nations.