Tiny Bahrain is the only Gulf state that agreed to be part of US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian against Yemen. But Bahrain doesn’t have a navy, just a few small combat vessels for its own maritime defence! Nevertheless, the US needed it as an Arab cover after the rest of Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, had rejected this alliance.

It must be remembered that most small Gulf states on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula that were originally part of Arabia had been carved into existence by Britain’s colonialist interventions. Britain needed control on these major ports, so even after Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE, all got their independence from Britain in the 1970s, each hosts US naval and air facilities to this day. Bahrain is the regional headquarter for the US Fifth Fleet that has an aircraft carrier, several submarines, naval destroyers, dozens of fighter jets and thousands of American soldiers.

The Sheikhdoms have had a symbiotic relationship with the West, where one ensured their independence from post-Ottoman Arabia and the other facilitated Western economic and political dominance in the region. And it was this long-term relation that pushed the UAE and Bahrain towards signing the Abraham Accords. But has this symbiosis eventually eroded?

This erosion began when the Saudis were disillusioned with the US when they withdrew from the Syrian War. The US had played the Arabs into this war on the pretext of the deepening Shia-Sunni divide with Iran and its allies. But since then, the Saudis have trodden an inverse route, that of reconciliation........

© The Express Tribune