Political instability continues to rock the Kingdom of Bahrain, home of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet - a force crucial to the Pentagon's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and tactical deterrent to the threat of a nuclear Iran.
Since the British left the tiny island-state in the 1970s, Bahrain has been ruled by the Khalifa royal family, a Sunni Muslim dynasty dating back to the pre-Islamic Arab tribe of the Annizah.
