The entry of forces from the GCC-affiliated Peninsula Shield to Bahrain, means the Gulf believes that the crisis in this country has extended beyond a domestic problem between a ruling regime and an opposition, and has become a regional challenge affecting all the GCC states. This challenge featured preludes and signs which emerged ever since the beginning of the protests in Bahrain. Indeed, these protests took a factional aspect, at a time when the Bahraini authorities tried – whether through direct initiatives or based on foreign advice – to contain the protests, while recognizing the existence of a flaw that must be rectified and the fact that dialogue could secure the required reform. For its part, and while it recognized that any reform plan in Bahrain and the Sultanate of Oman requires financial resources to implement developmental projects meeting the aspirations of the citizens, the GCC ratified $10 billion in aid to the two countries. In other words, the Bahraini authorities, along with the GCC, acknowledged the need for domestic reform and the necessity of ensuring the required capabilities for this reform. However, neither the Bahraini official calls for dialogue with the demonstrators to look into the demands and the general pardon in favor of convicts, nor the massive financial Gulf aid to support this reform managed to convince the protesters to vacate the street and accept the proposed political solutions, as they held on to their condition of seeing the changing of the constitutional character of the authority for factional reasons. And this is where the Bahraini crisis resides. Back to the preludes, cells linked to Iran were exposed in Bahrain and those implicated in them were tried in court on charges of attempting to undermine security and organize a coup against the ruling regime, thus leading to the issuance of sentences in this regard. In the meantime, Tehran was talking about Bahrain's affiliation with Iran. With this facet of the problem clarified, Bahrain tried to limit these sentences to an individual context and maintain positive relations with Iran. Former Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki might have paid the price for statements which served this positivity, back when he was ousted by President Ahmadinejad following his attendance of the Manama conference where he spoke about relations of parity with the GCC states in general, and Bahrain in particular. For their part, Bahraini Shiite figures distanced themselves from the extremist positions expressed by the protest movement on the street, especially after the authorities pulled out their forces and reiterated the calls for dialogue. And with the release of those who were convicted in the Iranian network case and the return of some of them from abroad, the protests took a blunt factional character at the level of the demands and the action. Consequently, some slogans went beyond the demands for reform and development to ones calling for the changing of the regime, in light of stringency affecting the sit-ins and the obstruction of public life in the country. In parallel, Tehran officially announced its support of the protesters, warning against their targeting and demanding the implementation of their demands as a peaceful opposition movement, at a time when the authorities in Iran are refusing to recognize the Iranian opposition, are pursuing its elements in the streets, preventing them from staging their peaceful demonstrations, arresting them, and issuing sentences against them. This reality denies any Iranian claims regarding the support of reform and renders Iran's position toward the events in Bahrain highly dubious. It also gives the impression that Iran is interfering through its loyalists, in order to topple the equation in Manama to serve its interests, thus giving the crisis a clear regional character following the depletion of all the local attempts to handle it. The official justifications for the entry of the Peninsula Shield Force to Bahrain, featured talk about the agreements within the Gulf Cooperation Council and Manama's request to see this entry in the context of the latter agreements. However, the preludes of the Bahraini crisis prompt the belief that the regional dimension was not absent. This entry constitutes a symbolic indication from the GCC, as it affirms that its states will not allow the changing of the domestic equation, whether through internal pressures or Iran's interference.
