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During the 2011 "Arab Spring" uprisings in Bahrain, the Saudis and other Gulf states sent soldiers across the causeway into Bahrain to bolster the government.
What if U.S. President Barack Obama had flat-out told the Gulf Cooperation Council that such interference would not be tolerated and would be considered an attack on the U.S. Fifth Fleet that's stationed there?
(AKA anything that crosses the causeway dies.)
The goal would be for the U.S. to manage an end to the uprising that secures the freedoms of the people without threatening Bahrain's status as a U.S. base.
Something tells me the Saudis wouldn't want to take the chance on getting a thrashing like the Iraqis got in 1991 and 2003, but at the same time, a lot of Obama's domestic critics would claim he was trying to help Iran take over Bahrain or something like that.