SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: Let's be honest about what the American bases in the Gulf actually protect. They protect the governments. From their own populations.

https://x.com/nxt888/status/2037207449237938493

Sony Thăng

Let's be honest about what the American bases in the Gulf actually protect. They protect the governments. From their own populations. This is not an accusation. This is the stated architecture of the security relationships. The American security umbrella is explicitly extended to protect the governments from external threats and, crucially, from internal instability. Meaning from the possibility that the population might decide it wants a different government. The deal is simple: You give us basing rights, access, intelligence cooperation, and compliant foreign policy, and we make sure you stay in power regardless of what your people want. This is why the Arab Spring was contained where it was contained and not where it wasn't. This is why certain governments survived 2011 and others didn't. This is why the American military footprint in the Gulf expanded, not contracted, in the years after popular uprisings showed what populations actually wanted. The bases protect governments from democracy. And those same governments, protected from democracy by American power, are using those bases to argue that Iran is the threat to regional security. The threat to regional security is the idea that Muslim populations should have a say in whether their governments normalize with Israel. The threat is the idea that the ummah's resources should be used for the ummah. The threat is the example of a government that said no to the arrangement and is still standing. That is the threat. Iran is the threat. Not to the people. To the arrangement. And the arrangement is using the people's land, and the people's resources, and the people's Islam, to protect itself from the threat.

3:38 AM · Mar 27, 2026