Bahrain’s King Hamad dismissed the country’s opposition movement as disunited and said the threat of Iran had compelled him to call in foreign troops to crush last year’s uprising. “In a sense there is no ‘opposition’ in Bahrain, as the phrase implies one unified block with the same views,” the king said extracts from an interview with Der Spiegel. “Such a phrase is not in our constitution, unlike say the United Kingdom. We only have people with different views and that’s okay,” he said in the article to be published today. Bahrainis took to the streets last February, inspired by Arab world uprisings, and the government imposed martial law, stamping out the unrest with the help of Saudi troops in March. Demonstrations began again after the emergency law was lifted in June and are escalating before the anniversary of the 2011 protests. Mainly Shiite opposition parties are demanding Bahrain’s elected parliament to have the power to form governments. Shiites complain of political and economic marginalisation by an entrenched elite who do not want to share power. The government denies this and says it is open to reforms. The United States and Saudi Arabia see Bahrain, host to the US Fifth Fleet, as a key ally in their conflict with Iran over its nuclear energy program and extended regional influence.  Washington says the government should enter a new dialogue with the opposition. Assistant US Secretary of State Michael Posner visited Manama last week and said the country must do more to heal the rifts left by the unrest. Activists are ramping up protests with official opposition party marches, rallies licenced by the government and unofficial marches led by activists and rights figures in Manama. Youths from the majority Shiite community clash nightly with police in villages. The king said the protesters’ refrain “Down with Hamad”, sounded by trumpets and car horns and chanted at rallies, was simply a case of bad manners and no reason to imprison people.  But he said chants in favour of Iran’s Supreme Ruler Ali Khamenei were a concern, echoing the government’s charge that Iran helped foment the uprising which, it says, had Shiite sectarian motives. Pro-Khamenei chants have not been heard at opposition rallies. “It’s just a case of manners. But when they shout ‘Down with the king and up with Khamenei’ that’s a problem for national unity,” he said. Some Shiites in Bahrain look to Khamenei as their spiritual guide, while analysts say more have Iraqi cleric Ali al-Sistani as their “source of emulation”. Government supporters often acccuse the leading Shiite opposition party Wefaq of links to Khamenei, charges the group strongly denies. One man said police had briefly detained his 13-year-old son last week for sounding anti-Hamad slogans with a trumpet at an opposition rally. The king, whose Al-Khalifa family dominates government, said he brought in emergency law to protect women and expatriates, some of whom were attacked.  “Also our women were very scared and it is the duty of a gentleman to protect women, so I had to protect them,” he said. Thirty-five people died by the time martial law ended, including protesters, police, Shiite detainees and foreigners. Influential Shiite cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim accused police last month of attacking women, calling on protesters to respond to any violations of women’s honour. The king told Der Spiegel he had called in Gulf Cooperation Council military help, mainly in the form of Saudi troops, to protect Bahrain’s “strategic installations…in case Iran would be more aggressive”. Following the unrest, the government instituted reforms giving the elected chamber more powers of scrutiny over ministers and budgets. Separately, Iran’s parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani warned Iran will not forgive Gulf Arab nations if they continue backing US “plots” against Tehran, local media reported yesterday. “We recommend to some of the countries in the region who were siding with (Iraq dictator) Saddam (Hussein) and now are siding with the US plots against the Iranian nation to give it up,” he was quoted as saying. “Iran will not forgive them again. There will be consequences in the region if new plots against our nation are carried out,” Larijani said. Larijani was referring to the generous financial aid and political support provided by Gulf Arab states, namely Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, to the Iraqi regime during the 1980-1988 war against Iran. His comments come at a time when the United States and the European Union have imposed new sanctions on Iran’s central bank and oil exports in January over its controversial nuclear program. Tehran has called on Saudi Arabia to reconsider a vow to make up for any shortfall in Iran’s oil exports due to these new sanctions, saying Riyadh’s pledge to intervene on the market was unfriendly. Long-strained ties between Shiite-dominated Iran and Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia deteriorated after Saudi-led troops intervened in Sunni-ruled Bahrain in March help the government there crush Shiite-led pro-democracy protests. The relations worsened late last year following US allegations that a foiled plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington had been hatched in Tehran. In addition, the Gulf Cooperation Council comprising of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have called on Iran to “stop interfering in the internal affairs” of their nations. The worsening ties continued after the six Gulf monarchies ordered their envoys home from Syria and expelled Damascus’s ambassadors, joining mounting pressure on Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad over the killings of civilians. Tehran has been Damascus main regional ally since the 1979 Islamic revolution and has been supportive of Assad’s regime in the 11 month uprising that has seen more than 6,000 people killed, according to human rights groups.