counterintuitive. because the people committing the violence in bahrain were people from the government. so the u.s.' influence now in all these countries seems to be minimal. >> reporter: right. the united states has a very tricky role to play in all these situations. i don't want to lump them too much, but the bottom line is that for so long the united states has supported these governments in bahrain, in egypt, and elsewhere in this part of the world for whatever reason. and in yemen, for example, they are hoping that the government can remain in power there. there were some protests there today, clashes between pro and anti-government forests, some level of violence. and i should also say it's very hard to know what's really going on in many of these places because it's difficult to report and see what's really happening. so many of these governments have clamped down on journalists, clamped down on access to the country, clamped down on broadcasting images or report office these countries. so we're getting a very muddled picture, and sometimes in the case of bahrain, things happen suddenly, almost overnight. and part of that is because