Its concern for Saleh’s political survival is closely linked to its guardianship of the Saudi regime, which fears that ferment in Yemen could give Saudi Arabia’s own Shia, Zaidi, and Ismaili populations dangerous ideas about democratic reform, if not threaten the very existence of the Saudi state. After all, Saudi Arabia’s southern tribes and Yemen’s northern tribes are historically the same people, while the Shia in the Kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province are protesting in political harmony with the Shia of Bahrain.