U.S. Defense Secretary Gates: Pro-Democracy Protests are Iranian Conspiracies

Well I guess it's pretty obvious that the stabler U.S. allies wouldn't have burgeoning democracy movements, but dangerous Islamism - bankrolled, of course, by the regional Islamic state that just happens to have nationalized key western interests:

""We already have evidence that the Iranians are trying to exploit the situation in Bahrain and we also have evidence that they're talking about what they can do to create problems elsewhere," Gates said.

"Saudi Arabia led a joint Gulf force that deployed there last month, enabling Bahraini authorities to quell protests calling for democratic reforms.

"On Sunday, foreign ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), of which Saudi Arabia is a leading member, accused Iran of interference in the affairs of Bahrain and Kuwait in a campaign to destabilise the region."AJE: US and Saudi Arabia discuss Iran 'meddling

Oh yes, you read that right: the U.S. is with S. Arabia in claiming that Iran is fomenting pro-democracy conflicts in the region (which makes sense because the "green revolution" protesters in Iran certainly couldn't be emboldened by these demonstrations). The Saudi Arabians have a good point though: unspecified Iranian meddling is certainly more of a cause for alarm than the Saudi-backed violent repression of a marginalized ethnic majority. Yep: Bahrain has an ethnio-nationalist oligarchy imposing unpopular rule over the ethnic majority; an unpopular rule that is being bankrolled by USAID and enforced by the engorged Saudi military when Bahrainians can't keep their ethnic underclass under control.

But don't worry folks, the real threat are those Iranians who had the audacity to demand that a local regime control (some) of their capital. The same Iranians who bankroll the resistance to another ethno-nationalist regime aligned with the west. Is it just me, or is this story getting old?