The US has a lot invested in Bahrain. Besides, the place has always been a lot more progressive and open than all of its neighbors (and also Arabia's last chance liquor store; important if you're working in the region). Are these protesters actually concerned with democratic reform are they planning to use democratic reform to put their society right back into the middle ages? I'd hesitate to take a side too because we (the USA) have the bad reputation of referring to terrible murderers as "freedom fighters" and perfectly reasonable regimes as "the evil empire" only to find out later we should have just left well enough alone...