Ironically, it is America, Saudi Arabia’s longtime protector, which made Shia empowerment possible by overthrowing Saddam Hussein and bringing Shiite parties to power in Iraq. The Bush administration seems to recognize what it has done; as the Shia arc rises in the east of the Arab Muslim world, the US is attempting to strengthen its protection of the Sunni arc – Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia – in the region’s west.