Indeed, the uprising by Bahrain’s Shia majority has now become a struggle for regional mastery between Iran and the US-backed Sunni monarchies in the Gulf. Even Turkey, an ally of Iran whose prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, sharply criticized the military intervention against Libya – lashing out at the West for viewing the region as “as a pawn in oil wars for decades” – called on Iran to restrain its bellicose rhetoric during the Bahrain crisis.