The Middle East has changed appreciably since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. The overthrow of the Saddam regime set in motion a protracted period of sectarian competition that only intensified eight years later during the Arab Spring. The United States tried to use the differences between the region's Shia and Sunnis to create a new regional balance of power but now finds itself entangled with both sides. The consequences of that entanglement are already starting to show. On July 7, Bahrain declared U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Tom Malinowski persona non grata. The Bahraini government claimed that Malinowski was meddling in its affairs by meeting with the head of the country's largest Shiite group, Al Wefaq. The next day, Malinowski tweeted that he was expelled because Manama wanted to undermine the dialogue between the Sunni-led government and the largely Shiite political opposition.