Giles Whittell in Manama
But even its most powerful friends cannot guarantee the security of this strategic island caught in the Gulf between worsening Iranian threats and deadly serious talk of a US military strike.
It is not a position from which to mince words. In an interview with The Times the Crown Prince has become the first Arab leader to jettison the language of diplomacy and directly accuse Tehran of seeking nuclear weapons.
While they dont have the bomb yet, they are developing it, or the capability for it, he said the first time one of Irans Gulf neighbours effectively has accused it of lying about its nuclear programme.
The Crown Prince also gave a blunt warning that the whole region would be drawn into any military conflict and called on India, as well as Russia, to help find a diplomatic solution. There needs to be far more done on the diplomatic front, he said. Theres still time to talk.
If there is a front line in the looming confrontation between Iran and the Arab world, Bahrain is on it.
The US Fifth Fleet is based here, its main carrier battle group tasked with securing the Strait of Hormuz. The King Fahd causeway to Khobar makes Bahrain a gateway to the richest oil reserves on Earth in eastern Saudi Arabia.
The Iranian coast is ten minutes away by fighter or medium-range missile. And this week a senior Iranian general said that suicide bombers were ready to strike at targets throughout the Gulf if necessary. Such rhetoric will focus minds in Qatar, Riyadh and the United Arab Emirates. But its effect is especially chilling in Bahrain as the only Sunni-led country with a Shia majority that is not at war or on the brink of war.
We are a country like Iraq and Lebanon, and we are the only one that is functioning properly, said Sheikh Khalid al-Khalifa, the Foreign Minister.
Bahrains Shias and the carnage in Iraq to the north make the kingdom a vital experiment in sectarian coexistence. So far the Shias have repaid the Royal Familys efforts at political reform with consistent professions of loyalty. That could change overnight in the event of an attack on Iran.
Already, large-scale demonstrations are not unusual. When the Golden Mosque in Samarra was bombed by al-Qaeda in Iraq last year, and again when Israel invaded Lebanon, Bahrain turned yellow with Hezbollah flags, according to one Western diplomat.
Since then a reform process that started with the release of all political prisoners in 2000 has largely stalled and leading Shia figures have complained about systematic discrimination by the Sunni Establishment. A scandal over alleged plans to end the Shia majority by granting fast-track citizenship to tens of thousands of foreign-born Sunnis has proved so inflammatory that an otherwise relatively free press has been banned from covering it.
The Crown Prince rejected claims of discrimination but acknowledged that the broader sectarian issue had become so politically charged that nobody is really willing to have a rational discussion about it.
Iran has not helped. In a newspaper editorial this summer, a close associate of President Ahmadinejad rekindled an old claim on Bahrain as Irans 14th province, with echoes of Saddam Husseins designs on Kuwait in the late 1980s that were picked up from London to Washington. The claim touched on the legitimacy of our country, the Foreign Minister said.
There is no suggestion yet of an Iranian invasion of Bahrain. But even as the kingdom throws up skyscrapers to compete with Dubai and Abu Dhabi for regional financial dominance, its security forces are on high alert for evidence of Iranian-backed sleeper cells that could bring them all tumbling down.
Between Bahrains two tallest office towers three giant wind turbines are suspended in a brave vote of confidence in a future of eco-friendly peace and prosperity. Without a diplomatic end to the Iran crisis, that confidence may soon look misplaced. But the alternatives a military strike on Iran and a regional nuclear arms race are too bleak to contemplate.
