"The United States has recently stepped up arms sales to gulf nations, including a $30 billion sale of 154 F-15 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia and a nearly $2 billion one to provide the United Arab Emirates with one of the most sophisticated antimissile systems. The gulf council, dominated by Saudi Arabia, has become more active beyond its borders. Qatar and the U.A.E. sent combat aircraft to the Mediterranean last year as part of the intervention against Libya, while Bahrain and the U.A.E. have forces in Afghanistan. That has made the United States eager to work even more closely with the nations as a group. At the same time, however, the gulf nations are some of the least democratic in the world. Last year, the gulf council dispatched a military force to Bahrain to support that government’s suppression of popular protests, brushing aside American criticism. (Critics of the Obama administration’s policy in Bahrain argue that the United States, which bases its Fifth Fleet there, did not itself press the country hard enough to end a brutal crackdown.)"