Coming Soon? The End of the Gulf Monarchies. Review of After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies,by Christopher M. Davidson,London, C. Hurst & Co., 2012, 224 pages.

Some assessments of the “Arab Spring” separate the Gulf monarchies (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) from the rest of the Arab world, seeing them as countries that have “escaped” or been “mostly unaffected” by it. Some nod in the direction of Bahrain as an exception, but dismiss its situation as under control thanks to military intervention by its neighbors and the passivity of the United States, which they say depends on the current regime to keep its...