When, in 1968, the British government announced that Britain's formal protectorate in the Gulf would end in 1971, American planners were anxious and distraught. After Suez, the US had taken the lead in defending Anglo-American interests in the Middle East, but the structure of power in the 'East of Suez' was still conserved by the old colonial power. The Persian Gulf states at that time supplied 30% of total oil resources. The reconstruction of Europe and especially Japan after WWII was driven by Gulf oil. And the US had no alternative structure of security elaborated for when Britain let go.

Bahrain, off the eastern shore of the Saudi Kingdom, had been subject to many of the same basic forms of state and market formation as the Saudi monarchy itself. Its commercial markets were first penetrated by British capitalism when East India company adventurers first arrived in the eighteenth century. It became a British 'protectorate', courtesy of gunboat diplomacy, in 1861. When I say 'gunboat diplomacy', I am being quite literal. The British had first imposed a 'General Treaty of Peace' on Gulf states, signalling their subordination to British power in the 1820s. This stated that Bahrain was not permitted to dispose of its territory except to the United Kingdom, or get involved in a relationship with any government without British consent. It was a way of keeping competing European powers out of the Gulf. The British later imposed their own 'Resident in the Persian Gulf' to manage their growing paramountcy in the region through a series of local advisors in Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait. All of this was supported and maintained by a large naval squadron. In return Britain promised to support the rule of Shaikh Al Khalifa, which established the UK's tradition of supporting Sunni dynastic rule over a largely Shia population. This system of rule was later centred on the British Raj, which maintained a Shaikhdom in Bahrain, and used the islands-state as a base for defending its regional interests, particularly during WWI.

Until the discovery and use of oil, Bahrain's major trades had included pearling, but throughout the 19th Century it diversified sufficiently for Manama to become the dominant trading city in the Gulf region, overtaking Basra and Kuwait. When oil was discovered in 1932, however, and Bahrain began exporting in 1934, it was just as traditional industries were suffering a severe decline amid global Depression. Unemployment had been soaring, and the pearl industry sinking. The sudden availability of oil revenues, a third of which were nominally controlled by the Shaikdom, paid for state-led capitalist development. Bahrain became what some social scientists call a 'rentier state', inasmuch as it depended by far on revenues derived from the sale of its oil on international markets than from the productive efforts of the society as a whole. The modern state of Saudi Arabia was formed under King Abdul Aziz bin Saud with British support in 1932, and it too began to export oil, with the industry taking off in 1938. This is when the current ties with the Saudi kingdom and US capital were first forged.

When Socal and Texaco initially combined in 1936 to form Aramco, the subsidiary was intended to run the oil concessions in both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Aramco, we know from Robert Vitalis, simultaneously created a public identity for itself as a partner in development and modernization, and reproduced the Jim Crow labour market structures then prevalent in the United States. The racial hierarchies maintained in the labour force, with white American workers at the apex and migrant workers from southern Asia at the bottom, still have operative effects in Bahrain's political system today. But the PR efforts, which involved paying a platoon of journalists, writers and scholars, building up research centres. Writers like Wallace Stegner took the 'myth of the frontier' elaborated by Frederick Jackson Turner, in which America's rugged democratic experiment was held to depend on the restless advance westward as hardy American citizens settled and improved otherwise empty land (oh yeah), and applied it to the oil frontiers. There, the oil companies were the pioneering heroes of civilization, the natives barely registering except as grateful recipients of racial uplift. At the same time, the British established more bases on the islands to entrench its control.

In partnership with British imperialism, represented in the person of 'advisor' Charles Belgrave, the oil firms helped construct forms of governance, geographies of accumulation, and market structures that guaranteed that this miraculous substance of myriad uses, this black gold, this vital source of industrialisation and advancement, would be controlled and directed by the 'West'. Bahrain, along with other Gulf states, was controlled from British India until 1947. In the postwar era, Britain maintained its 'informal' empire in the Gulf through a system of local advisors and client regimes backed by military force. Modernisation projects, such as the creation of a national education system, were built under British imperial tutelage. Challenges to the regime were assisted by British weaponry, as during the suppression of anti-British riots in the immediate post-war years, the containment of strikes by the left-wing National Union Committee, the crushing of pro-Egyptian demonstrations in 1956, and the putting down of the pro-independence March Intifada in 1965.

Until 1971, then, the British provided the security and patronage framework within which US oil capital operated. Under the banner of 'guided development', the British ruling class cultivated sterling-based networks of regional clients, and developed internal security apparati (mukhabarat) to sustain regimes which would operate only minimally within the integument of formal sovereignty. This model could occasionally conflict with US strategy. If American planners were not keen for rapid decolonization, fearing not just the exclusion of US investors but also the emergence of a worldwide systemic alternative to capitalism, they nonetheless had a conception of geographical accumulation, based substantially on the work of geographer Isaiah Bowman and other social scientists in light of their own experiments in direct colonial rule, which did not necessarily depend on direct territorial control. A global hierarchy of sovereign states operating an 'open door' policy was in principle compatible with US imperial hegemony, provided there was no revolutionary challenge to that hegemony. As such, the US had not initially worried overly about the Free Officers taking over Egypt in 1952, or Iraq in 1958. The real worry came later, in the 1960s, when Arab nationalism took a radical leftist turn. And though one context of Britain's declaration of withdrawal from its 'East of Suez' engagements was a traumatic defeat for Arab nationalism, there was still no certainty that ensuing movements and regimes would provide favourable territories for continued US capital accumulation. Britain's retreat from its imperial commitments 'East of Suez reflected defeat of a similar kind to that being inflicted on the US in Vietnam - this despite often brutal counterinsurgency campaigns in Malaysia and Aden (Yemen). Because of the growing political and economic costs of these commitments for a crisis-hit British capitalism, the Conservatives pledged to honour Wilson's withdrawal plans.

The US strategy in the Gulf was thus to engage in a Metternichian 'power-balancing' strategy. This involved strengthening its ally, the Shah, who asserted an Iranian claim to Bahrain, while also working to bolster the opposing Ba'athist regime in Iraq. With respect to Bahrain, a US naval squadron took up where the British navy departed. The formally independent emirate of Bahrain maintained its cosy relationship with Anglo-American power. Despite the creation of a parliament elected solely by male voters in 1973, the monarch retained the ability to impose laws by decree, such as the highly repressive State Security Law. Surging oil revenues in the 1970s contributed to the restoration of relative political stability, and attracted waves of migrant workers from civil war struck Lebanon and from southern Asia. The decline of the Left and of Arab nationalism in the same period opened the field of dissent to Islamists inspired by the Iranian revolution of 1979, and the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain attempted a coup in 1981. In this context, the Anglo-American archipelago became an important counter-weight to the Islamic Republic, as its hosting of the US Navy's 'Fifth Fleet' provided a basis for the US military to threaten and contain Iran while Saddam Hussein mounted his invasion.

The ties with the Saudi kingdom, which was engaged in a region-wide struggle to prevent the influence of the Iranian revolution from spreading, were crucial in helping the Bahrain monarch defeat the Islamist challenge. In 1981, the Gulf Cooperation Council was forged to coordinate economic and political strategies among six key Gulf states, under Saudi hegemony. Economic associations were created to avoid the duplication of outlay. The Saudi-Kuwaiti-Bahraini Petrochemicals Company (Gulf Petrochemicals Company) was also formed. The Saudi-Bahrain connection was even rendered manifest by the King Fahd Causeway, a World Bank supported white elephant which has connected the Aramco city of Dahran to the refineries of Bahrain since completion in 1986. When oil prices collapsed in the 1990s, unemployment protests culminated in a wave of uprisings took place lasting from 1994 to 2000. The challenge to the monarchy united leftists, Islamists and liberals, and was met with much the same forms of indiscriminate violence by Saudi-backed security forces as we have witnessed recently. In fact, 'indiscriminate' may not be quite the word I'm looking for - the attacks were clearly targeted at Shi'ite areas. The uprising only ended when a new emir promised a series of liberalising political reforms specified in the National Action Charter, which - while carefully conserving private property and the market - included some promises of social justice, the defence of public property, and the extension of democracy. The official state of emergency imposed since 1975 was dropped, and women were permitted to vote for the first time in 2002. This reform was intended to do what repression had not succeeded in doing, conserving the power of the ruling clan. And it was supported by over 98% of the population in a nationwide referendum.

While these reforms did not turn Bahrain into a democracy, they did permit previously covert opposition groups to emerge into the open. Nationwide protests and strikes favouring real democracy and opposing the demeaning, racist treatment of migrant workers, have been a regular occurrence since, often defying official protest bans. These have combined the Shi'ite opposition with leftist and Arab nationalist opposition currents. Official racism, not only discriminating against and repressing the majority Shia population, who are deprived of all military-oriented jobs as well as roles in strategically important government positions, but also attempting to 'reclaim' Manama 'for Bahrainis' has been part of the conservative response to these protests. In the 2000s, the al-Wefaq (Islamic National Accord) party has been the major political vehicle through which the Shi'ite majority has attempted to resist discrimination. Though they boycotted the 2002 elections in protest at the dominance of royal-appointed placemen in the upper chamber, their participation in the 2006 elections saw 16 of their 17 candidates for a 40-seat lower chamber get elected. Al-Wefaq's support for greater democracy, the decentralisation of power and the redistribution of wealth and resources has always posed at least a latent challenge to the ruling royals. In place of governorates, it aims to transfer considerable power to municipal councils which would be controlled by the Shia majority. In place of a royal-dominated upper chamber, it seeks to place legislative power decisively in the hands of the elected majority and will work with other opposition parties to this end. Meanwhile its socially conservative 'morality' campaigns challenge the avowedly secular culture of the regime. Its emergence and support in the mosques is significant given the traditionally quietist role of religious authorities schooled in the conservative Akhbari Shia tradition. The biggest leftist bloc is National Democratic Action, which also boycotted the 2002 elections and has participated in the major protest movements. It is rooted in workers movements and womens' associations. In terms of members and votes, it is smaller than al-Wefaq, but both have been willing to work together in parliamentary and extra-parliamentary battles. The 'Democratic Bloc', formerly the Communist Party of Bahrain, did stand in the 2002 elections and received a decent share of the vote. There are also Sunni Islamist and salafist groups which are occasionally oppositional, and a relatively large liberal-right parliamentary group called the 'Economists Bloc' which supports the status quo.

The uprising in Bahrain began on the 10th anniversary of the National Action Charter being passed by referendum. The accumulated grievances over the lack of democracy, discrimination against the Shia, the use of torture and repression, and the lack of workers' rights were already producing a serious challenge to the monarchy. But then, Tunisia. Then, Egypt. As protests were prepared for 14th February, the regime panicked. The kingdom ordered that every family be given 1000 Bahraini dinars (equivalent to $2,600) to celebrate the anniversary of the National Action Charter. But the bribe didn't work. Nor did the King's gesture of releasing 450 political prisoners. The police used tear gas and rubber bullets on 14th February. On 15th, they fired on the funeral of a protester killed the previous day. Protesters took control of the Pearl Roundabout in Manama. On 16th, the protests grew larger. On 17th, hundreds were injured and dozens killed as police attacked the occupation of Pearl Square. The government imposed a state of emergency. Yesterday, security forces crackdowns included the murder of paramedics tending to injured protesters. Today, weapons from Britain and the US sustain Bahrain's crackdown, and the Saudi kingdom is reported to be supporting the repression in Bahrain. So, as in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere in the Middle East - above all Palestine - what the rebels are up against is not just their own state but a global configuration of power predicated on oil flows that stands behind it. It is that system of power based on neoliberal accumulation and oil capital If the Bahrain monarchy falls, then the crisis of US imperialism is intensified. The country may cease to host the US Navy. Saudi Arabia may no longer have its junior ally, and its own population, not least the Shia majority, may start to build on the protests already in evidence. At some point, the US will have to up its ante. But what will it do? Invade? Let Israel off the leash? And if it does either of these things, what are the chances that it may just radicalise and spread the revolution further still?

Until the so-called underpants bomber failed to strike, you would have been hard pressed to find much information on the Yemen insurgency outside of Press TV. Of the Anglophone media, only the wire services seemed to pay much attention to the Houthi rebellion, and Saudi air strikes against it. US involvement in the Saudi air strikes, some of them ostensibly against 'Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula', started to be reported this month. Now this clueless bampot/false flag (take your pick) and his combustible loin cloth have been taken into custody (I'll let you riff on how it could have been a 'dirty bomb'), the former reported as saying that he was trained by 'Al Qaida' in Yemen. So, Obama has his opportunity to come out openly and demand more US attacks in Yemen.

What is this actually about? In one light, the conflict could be seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the latter accused (though I have seen no evidence for the accusation) of sponsoring the Houthi rebels, who are in turn accused of having engaged in a cross-border raid on Saudi Arabia. In another light, it is simply about the breakdown of the Yemen polity, which is increasingly de-funded as oil and tourism revenues tumble. President Ali Abdellah Saleh's resort to reliance on Saudi air power against the Houthi rebels reflects the inability of the nothern ruling class, represented by Saleh, to maintain their dominance in response to various regional challenges despite having won the civil war in 1994. As is so often the case, though, it is not possible to extricate the internal conflict from imperialist pressure, as the US shores up the regime and attacks both Sunni and Shia rebels, the latter through Saudi strikes. One thing it isn't about is 'Al Qaida'. The radical Sunni militias that helped the north to victory in 1994 may have turned against their former allies, and there may be organisations there dedicated to attacking US interests in the Middle East. However, to characterise such groups as 'Al Qaida' is to buy into a brand myth. There is no 'Al Qaida' in the sense of a coherent movement with a shared organisation, a clear set of goals and a consistent ideology.

The roots of the current crisis of the Yemeni state are to be found in its construction from a polity divided between British imperial rule, and Ottoman rule. The Arab nationalist and leftist movements sweeping the Middle East since the 1920s did not take root in Yemen until relatively late, only becoming strong among the Adenis in the south by 1956, though a number of oppositional clubs had been founded. Typically, such nationalist groupings demanded not only the unity of southern Yemen, but also unification with the north: this was the position of the group around the an-Nahda (Renaissance) publication, and that around al-Fajr (Dawn). But the independence movement was given a radicalised edge by proletarianisation and the emergence of a militant trade union movement (the Adeni Trade Union Congress). It was this movement that gave a cutting edge to the emerging forms of anticolonial nationalism, as the organised working class rallied to Nasser's Egypt when it was attacked by Britain, France and Israel in 1956. It had successfully organised election boycotts, scuppered attempts by the British to circumvent anticolonial unity by creating a 'Federation' linking traditional sultan rule in the 'hinterland' of southern Yemen to British capital in Aden, and formed the basis of the People's Socialist Party. Despite ferocious repression by the British authorities, they were able to win major reforms and pose the anti-colonial question in a compelling way.

Meanwhile in the north of Yemen, the lead was taken by Nasirists. In 1962, the newly crowned King, Muhammad al-Badr, had attempted to check opposition by appointing a Zeidi and a nationalist, Abdullah as-Sallal, as head of his bodyguards. But he owed al-Badr no loyalty, and began preparing a coup. A separate group of Nasirists had also developed in the army officers' corp, a typical social base for modernising Arab nationalists. They had been planning their own coup for September 1962, but were beaten to the punch by as-Sallal, whose tanks shelled the palace in Sanaa, the capital of the north, taking control of the city. They declared a Yemen Arab Republic in the north, quashed the Imamate, liquidated the property of some landowners, outlawed slavery, and set up a new currency as well as a series of institutions to help transform the north into an independent centre of capital accumulation. Badr fled to Saudi Araba from where he launched a royalist counterattack, with Prince Hassan returning from New York to rally opposition to the royalists' side. At the same time, a number of local tribal leaders took the opportunity to declare their own Imamates. There began a civil war that consumed approximately 4% of the North Yemen population, with Egypt and the USSR backing the Republicans, and the US and Saudi Arabia backing the royalists. But the royalists had the greater resources at their disposal, and as territories held by the YAR fell, Egypt's involvement in the war became very unpopular domestically, as well as among some tribal forces constituting themselves as a 'third force' hostile to both the royalists and Egyptian involvement. Nasir decided to cut a bargain with the Saudis, pledging to withdraw his troops if the Saudis would stop aiding the royalists. There were also said to be unpublished agreements that would limit the scope of anti-British resistance in southern Yemen. When as-Sallal flew to Cairo to protest against a deal which they were not party to, they locked him up and imposed a new leadership on the YAR. This particular deal collapsed, but the fact that Egypt continued to prosecute the war in the old ways - attempting to control the republicans bureaucratically, containing their efforts in ways congruent with the interests of the Egyptian state - weakened the YAR's chances, strengthening the 'third forces' who would eventually cut a deal with the royalists and turn North Yemen into a Saudi sattelite.

In southern Yemen, it was the left that took the lead. The anti-colonial insurgency had been given a shot in the arm by the declaration of the YAR, although it would probably have received little support from the north were it not for Britain's decision to back the royalists. The socialist Left had until that time relied on more or less peaceful metods of mass mobilisation, but it now became apparent that a military solution was called for. It had to spread well beyond the capital into the 'hinterland', and embrace forces beyond the left. So, a new National Liberation Front was formed, comprising army officers, pro-republican tribal leaders, workers and intellectuals. It sought to mobilised the hinterland and develop a 'popular revolutionary army', quite distinct from the kind of professionalised army that was in power in Egypt and intervening in north Yemen. The guerilla war it launched sought to tax the British army by drawing it into a territory, hammering it, then vacating as troop concentrations became overwhelming, whereupon a new offensive would begin elsewhere. The policy of igniting the mountainous and rural areas of the 'hinterland' was effective. The British had relied on traditional sultan rule to counterbalance the militancy of workers in Aden and the Gulf. Now they had lost control of the countryside, and the insurgency was about to go urban. Attempts by the incoming Labour government in 1964 to coopt the leadership, appointing a nationalist (albeit a right-wing one) as Prime Minister and putting on a conciliatory face, were futile. They were committed to maintaining the 'Federation' and their base, but the NLF was not willing to accept this as the basis for any agreement. British military repression, and the torture of local residents intended to extract information, were insufficient to quell the rebellion.

In 1966, the Labour government accepted that it could no longer hold the base and included withdrawal from Aden in a Defence White Paper. This did not mean that they would relent on trying to ensure a pro-British government remained in power. And, in fact, when Egypt was defeated in the Six Day War in June 1967, they took this as the cue to reverse course, declare that they would increase aid for the 'Federation' government, and maintain their military presence for at least six months after 'independence'. Meanwhile, the NLF was radicalising, having refused to subordinate itself to Egyptian interests by uniting with the more right-wing bourgeois nationalist group, the Front for the Liberation of South Yemen (FLOSY). Its leadership began to speak of 'Marxism-Leninism', had studied the guerilla tactics of Mao and the Viet Cong, and was preparing for a much more radical struggle for power. Instead of depending on the Egyptians for funding, they would expropriate the bourgeoisie (bank and jewellery shop robberies), and raise whatever contributions they could from supporters. The FLOSY, backed by the Egyptians, began to attack the NLF using their new paramilitary units, to little avail. A right-wing faction within the NLF favoured negotiating with the FLOSY, but this was unacceptable to most NLF militants. And even as Britain was back-tracking on its commitment to withdrawal, an uprising in Crater took place in which the police and army corps rebelled against the British. This threatened Britain's last credible instrument of power, the South Arabian army. The NLF governed Crater for thirteen days, freeing prisoners, distributing propaganda, and handing over British owned villas to the local population. Moreover, the British had failed to anticipate one effect of Egypt's defeat in the Six Day War, which was to discredit the Nasirists and hand the initiative to the most radical currents in the NLF. The British had to flee, and by 29 November 1967 their troops had vacated. At midnight, the People's Republic of South Yemen was created.

The NLF left wanted to take the struggle much futher. They wanted a new kind of state, in which the army was a popular militia, and in which political power rested on popular committees in each locality, which in turn would elect officials to higher bodies. Abdullah Fatah Ismail, writing for the NLF left, maintained that the new state could either be dominated by the petty bourgeoisie and become a capitalist state using socialist phrases, or it could be a state of workers, poor peasants and partisans. Eventually, the NLF left mobilised to defeat the relatively right-wing leadership in June 1969, and the country was renamed the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen.

Thus, the north and south of Yemen were divided along political and geopolitical lines. They embodied, appaarently, competing social systems, the former pro-capitalist and pro-Western, the latter aspiring toward socialism and pro-USSR. But that division notwithstanding, the majority favoured Yemen unity, and such unity was nominally sought by both northern and southern states. However, that usually took the form of one side trying to impose its version of unity on the other. Thus, in 1972, the north invaded the south with Saudi support. Then, in 1979, the south invaded the north. No dice either way. The southern state was never to achieve any of its radical aims - it was a poor state, its leadership fractious, its politics expressed increasingly in the dogmatic canards of 'Marxism-Leninism'. In 1990, after the collapse of the USSR, it agreed to unity with the north's military leader, Field Marshall Ali Abdullah al-Saleh, who it agreed would by head of the new state.

But, again, the northern elite ought unity on its own terms. The south's oil riches were there to be exploited only by the northern bourgeoisie. So in 1994, when the south looked like seceding, al-Saleh embarked on a preemptive civil war against the former rulers of the south, the Yemeni Socialist Party, purging them and pillaging Aden at the end of a ruthless seventy day assault. Al-Saleh, himself a member of the Zeidi Shi'a sect, did not hesitate to use right-wing Sunni Islamists such as the 'Aden-Abyan Islamic Army' in order to win that war. (It was they who were later supposed to have organised the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, and it is groups like this who are often referred to as 'Al Qaida'. It was supposedly a group like this that trained that numpty who didn't quite blow up an airplane in Detroit). Even following that victory, however, the northern ruling class could not prevent the emergence of regional, tribal and confessional challenges, often taking the form of armed insurgency.

This brings us to the present impasse. The model of Yemen unity that has been imposed since 1994 clearly isn't sustainable, nor does it have the remotest resemblance to the democratic and egalitarian promise of the 1960s. And where the old left and nationalist currents have failed, Islamist currents - often right-wing ones - sometimes took their place. And these in turn intersect with regional disaffection, as the geography of capital accumulation favours a central ruling class, while leaving substantial territories impoverished. That is what has happened in Yemen. The current stale regime, having encouraged Islamist currents in order to purge the left, now finds itself on the receiving end of their fire. Certainly, Sunni Islamists have some support in Yemen, and their numbers may be augmented by support from some refugees from the Somalian civil war, and US aggression there. However, while their ability to act speaks to the weakeness of the regime, they do not pose a serious threat to the state, and nor are they the targets of the Saudi bombings. That would be the Houthi rebellion, which is led by the Shabab al Moumineen group, whose members are Zeidi, and which calls for a Shi'a state in Yemen. They are also hostile to US and Israeli domination, and especially to the state's over-dependence on Saudi Arabia. Far from representing a localised insurgency centred on a single family, as the Yemeni authorities prefer to maintain, they do pose a comprehensive challenge to the authority of the state.

At the same time, a secessionist movement in the south has resumed, as southerners claim - with some justice - that they are subject to severe discrimination by the current rulers. The fact that they have been butchered while holding peaceful protests (eg) has tended to deepen their conviction. The Southern Movement is not an armed insurgency but, with a state in fiscal crisis and with unemployment at 40%, its success would certainly deprive the northern rulers of revenue (notably oil revenue) that they intend to keep. They are not Islamists, but nor are they exactly leftists, though they do have support from exiled leaders of the Yemen Socialist Party. Now, the US is committing $70m to upholding the present Yemen regime, and while its back-up artillery might take out some groupuscule leader deemed 'Al Qaida'. the basic aim of its funding and military intervention is to defend the incumbent regime against far more cohesive opponents. The result will be to encourage the regime to continue to brutalise and slaughter its opponents - indeed, help them to do so - rather than attempting any reforms that might be necessary to integrate them. The US doesn't care, of course. Suffice to say they don't have an alternative to the present model of Yemen unity, any more than al-Saleh does. They want to conserve a pro-American regime in Yemen as a de facto Saudi sattelite, and can't be expected to worry about the petty grievances of these little people with their absurd ideas about self-government and autonomy.