becoming formally independent as the State of Bahrain on 16 December 1971. At independence, the permanent Royal Navy presence in Bahrain ended and the United States Navy moved onto the 10 acres (40,000 m2) previously occupied by British operations. The installation later grew into Naval Support Activity Bahrain, headquarters for the United States Fifth Fleet. The emirate emerged just as the price of oil skyrocketed after the 1973 Yom Kippur War; while Bahrain's own reserves were being depleted the high oil price meant there was massive capitalisation in the Kingdom's neighbours. The Kingdom was able to exploit the situation thanks to another war in the Levant in 1975: the Lebanese Civil War. Beirut had long been the financial centre of the Arab world, but the outbreak of hostilities in the country had an immediate impact on the banking industry. Bahrain offered a new location at the centre of the booming Persian Gulf with a large educated indigenous workforce and sound fiscal regulations. Realizing the opportunity to become a financial centre resulted in growth in other industries in the country. This bolstered the development of the middle class and gave Bahrain a very different class structure from its tribal dominated neighbours. Although there had long been a large Indian presence in Bahrain, it was at this time that mass migration to the Kingdom began to take off with subsequent consequences for the Kingdom's demographics. Large numbers of immigrants from Third World countries such as the Philippines, Pakistan, Egypt, and Iran were attracted by better salaries than at home. The constitutional experiment Based on its new 1973 constitution, Bahraini men elected its first National Assembly in 1973 (although Article 43 of the 1973 Constitution states that the Assembly is to be elected by "universal suffrage", the conditional clause "in accordance with the provisions of the electoral law" allowed the regime to prevent women from participating). Although the Assembly and then-Emir Isa ibn Salman al-Khalifa quarrelled over a number of issues (foreign policy; the U.S. naval presence, and the budget), the biggest clash came over the State Security Law (SSL). The Assembly refused to ratify the government-sponsored law, which allowed, among other things, the arrest and detention of people for up to three years, (renewable) without a trial. The legislative stalemate over this act created a public crisis, and on 25 August 1975, the emir dissolved the Assembly. The emir then ratified the