![Google](http://www.google.com/images/poweredby_transparent/poweredby_FFFFFF.gif)
Peter Goodspeed
As riot police in Bahrain attacked hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators Monday with tear gas, rubber bullets and concussion grenades, U.S. strategic interests in the Gulf appeared poised to receive yet another battering from the revolutionary wave that is sweeping the Arab world.
Just days after the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, stripped Washington of its strongest diplomatic partner in the region, pro-democracy demonstrations in Bahrain threaten one of its most crucial military outposts in the centre of an arc of instability that now stretches from North Africa through the Middle East to South Asia.
Bahrain’s Shiite majority, which accounts for almost 70% of the population, is challenging the island’s Sunni king, Sheik Hamid bin Isa al-Khalifa. They want him to rewrite the constitution to give Shiites a larger share of power and economic opportunity, while demanding investigations into widespread complaints of torture and corruption.
Demonstrators are also calling for the release of up to 500 people arrested last fall in a security sweep aimed at crushing emerging Shiite opposition movements.
As in Tunisia and Egypt, opposition organizers in Bahrain have used Facebook and Twitter to rally demonstrators. On Monday they sought to bring tens of thousands into the streets, just as the country marked the 10th anniversary of Sheik Khalifa’s attempt to transform a hereditary emirate into a constitutional monarchy.
Bahrain is the smallest and most volatile of the Gulf states, with a long history of animosity between a ruling Sunni elite closely allied to the Saudi monarchy and its Shiite majority, which has a religious affinity with Iran.