The Saudi "leadership vacuum" is clouding the decision making on ........Bahrain?

"U.S. efforts to stabilize Bahrain, another key Arab ally roiled in popular uprising, is being threatened on several fronts—including apparent splits in Bahrain's royal family and a sense of disengagement by Saudi Arabia, the region's biggest power. Whether the U.S. can halt the unrest in Bahrain is viewed as critical to stabilizing the Persian Gulf and checking Iran's influence. But there is growing uncertainty in Washington over who in the tiny Middle East sheikdom's royal family ordered the use of increasing force against unarmed protesters, according to officials briefed on the diplomacy...

The situation in Bahrain is complicated by U.S. uncertainty over Saudi Arabia's position on the growing regional turmoil. Riyadh has enormous influence over Bahrain's royal family due to the financial and energy aid it provides. Riyadh has in the past sent its own security forces into Bahrain to quell unrest, concerned that Bahrain's Shiite majority could fuel instability inside Saudi Arabia. Still, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and many of his closest advisers have been in Morocco in recent weeks as the Saudi monarch recovers from surgery. That has been seen as limiting the ability of other Saudi royals to make decisions....

"There's a leadership vacuum in Saudi Arabia, which is clouding the decision-making process," said Simon Henderson, who tracks Saudi politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Washington's strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia has faltered in other theaters in the Middle East as well this year. Last month, the militant Lebanese group Hezbollah overthrew the U.S.- and Saudi-backed government in Beirut, greatly enhancing Iran's and Syria's influence in the Mediterranean nation. Successive U.S. administrations had since 2005 worked with Riyadh to try and bolster former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri as a counterweight to Hezbollah's backers in Tehran and Damascus. But Saudi Arabia ultimately pulled out of mediating efforts on behalf of Mr. Hariri, as Hezbollah threatened to sow unrest. ... The fate of Bahrain, as Egypt before it, is crucial to U.S. strategic interests, .... "If the U.S. loses Bahrain, they risk losing the Persian Gulf," said a senior Arab diplomat Friday.Officials wouldn't comment on whether the Obama administration was directly seeking the removal of Prime Minister Khalifa. But the official said the prime minister "is hated by the majority in Bahrain..."