The Gulf: Those annoying democrats SINCE the wave of Arab uprisings started last year, the theory of "Arab exceptionalism" promoted by many Western governments to justify supporting dictatorships has looked a lot weaker. There was virtually no demand for democracy in rich, pro-Western or strategically valuable Arab countries, it was once breezily argued. Now the buzz phrase is "monarchical exceptionalism." After all, the Arab world's eight monarchies, all but two of them in the Gulf region, seem plainly a lot better at fending off popular pressure for democracy than the republics. That, at any rate, has been the argument. The monarchies do not pretend to be democracies but openly and honestly espouse hereditary rule, whereas the likes of Libya, Syria, Egypt and Yemen clothed ruling dynasties in the language of democracy while entrenching a ruling family in power. Moreover, Arab kings, it is said, have been cleverer than their republican counterparts. Some, such as the kings of Morocco and Jordan, two non-Gulf survivors, have given political ground without losing their dignity - or their ultimate power; Morocco's bolsters his authority by vaunting his ancient dynasty's heritage. In any case, say the Arab monarchs" Western backers, people under benevolent monarchies are happy to see the odd troublemaking dissident locked up. Western notions of human rights are deemed out of place and unwanted, so the argument runs. The surviving octet of monarchies is strengthened by economic and strategic factors. Six of them export oceans of oil. All are close allies of the United States. In 2011, a record year for American arms sales abroad that were worth $66 billion in all, more than half in value went to Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy with no pretence of democracy. The Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, where British and foreign officers are trained, has accepted a donation of $3m from the king of Bahrain. Yet the Gulf monarchies are no longer immune to protests. Only Qatar has been virtually untouched. In Bahrain a court has just upheld sentences against 13 opposition leaders accused of crimes that range from plotting to overthrow the government to insulting the army. In Saudi Arabia, where a succession crisis persists and the 88-year-old king has again been abroad for medical treatment, two human-rights campaigners went on trial this month for setting up unlicensed organisations and turning international ones against the kingdom, among other crimes. Thousands of Saudi political dissidents, some of them violent, are already behind bars. Even the United Arab Emirates (UAE), long regarded as a beacon of stability, seems beset with anxiety. Six Emiratis have recently been arrested, taking to 56 the number of activists detained since the fasting month of Ramadan began on July 20th. The UAE news agency said the first 50 had plotted to destabilise the country and to "distort its shining image before the world." An American professor of journalism, Matt Duffy, who encouraged his students to debate such issues as press freedom, was recently expelled from the UAE. All the Gulf monarchs spend fortunes on public-relations firms and lobbyists. According to Bahrain Watch, a pro-democracy lobby, the kingdom has paid at least 15 such firms in the United States $33m since its uprising started more than a year ago. Not surprisingly the monarchs are infuriated when opposition people, thanks to Twitter and YouTube, nowadays publicise human-rights abuses gratis.