Sefr al Hawali, a prominent Saudi Wahhabi cleric, warned of the dangers of the “Shia arc” following the Shia intifada in Iraq in 1991. But, since the war in Iraq in 2003 and the empowerment of Shia across the region, the Saudi regime faces sizeable, restless, and politically ambitious Shia populations in neighboring Gulf countries, especially Kuwait and Bahrain, as well as in Lebanon.