Soldiers open fire on protesters in Bahrain

That's damned scary.

I have. It's awful; the protesters are a brave lot but face a ruthless establishment. . . .

The situation is markedly different from Egypt. You have a Sunni minority ruling a Shia majority. In this case, the islamists are the ones initiating the uprising. If they take over, it'll make the Saudis extremely jittery, since they will have Shia controlled Iran, Bahrein and Iraq. Iran had already started asserting its hegemony by sending its warships into the Red Sea (they visited Jeddah and currently try convincing the Egyptians to let them through the Suez). All in all a very shitty situation.