Saudi Arabia announced yesterday that it will starting withdrawing some of its troops from Bahrain, believing the reform movement to be mostly quashed. Mehdi Khalaji steps back to analyze the political fallout for Iran:
[T]he Bahrain crisis has hurt the Islamic Republic's relations with Arab governments and endangered its image among Shiites, given Tehran's ineptitude in providing help for Shiite dissidents and protecting them from Sunni violence. Many Arab Shiites expect Iran to act as the protector of their coreligionists throughout the region. And several groups of Bahraini clerics have written to Khamenei urging him to help the island's Shiites. … Yet there is no evidence that Khamenei has responded to this appeal.
Overall, the Bahraini crisis has been an important test of Iran's pro-Shiite propaganda. The Islamic Republic's policy toward Shiite communities in the region has shown itself to be quite complicated and increasingly muddled. The result has been mounting Shiite suspicion toward Iran — not only in Bahrain, but also in places such as southwestern Saudi Arabia — regarding the extent to which they can rely on Tehran to assist them in the event of confrontation with their governments.
The Dish 