Bahrain

Now in its third year in office, the Obama Administration has never championed the cause of human rights. Its slow reaction in June 2009 to the stealing of the election in Iran and the birth of the “Green Movement” there, and its delay in backing the rebellions in Egypt, Libya, and Syria, are evidence of this problem. But two recent news items show just how bad the situation has become. In Bahrain, American silence and inaction in the face of human rights abuses has produced resentment toward the United States. Here is what the New York Times reported last week: As the status quo endures — some believe that the king may introduce reforms this month, while others remain skeptical — anger among many Shiites toward American policy has deepened. Though some appreciated President Obama’s criticism of the crackdown in May, many lament what they see as a double standard. In contrast to the treatment of Syria and Libya, they point out, no administration official is calling for sanctions against Bahrain, a country where the United States has its largest regional naval base, for the Fifth Fleet. “Democracy isn’t only for those countries the United States has a problem with,” said Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. Last week as well, the Obama Administration made an astonishing kow-tow to China and intervened in free elections in Taiwan. The Financial Times of London reported this: The Obama administration has warned that a victory by Tsai Ing-wen, the Taiwanese opposition leader, in the island’s January presidential election could raise tensions with China. A senior US official said Ms Tsai, the Democratic Progressive party leader who is visiting Washington, had sparked concerns about stability in the Taiwan Strait, which is “critically important” to the US. “She left us with distinct doubts about whether she is both willing and able to continue the stability in cross-Strait relations the region has enjoyed in recent years,” the official told the Financial Times after Ms Tsai met with administration officials. What a picture! We intervene in Taiwan where there are free elections, and remain far too quiet on Bahrain where there are manifold abuses. When Bahraini human rights activists see a double standard, they are close to the truth: the Obama Administration appears to have no coherent human rights policy at all. If human rights NGOs were not mostly on the Left they would be protesting far more vociferously against this abandonment of principle. The resentment felt in Bahrain can be dangerous to U.S. interests; indeed in the future it can endanger the presence of the Fifth Fleet there. I recall well the Nixon Administration’s support for the Greek coup in 1967, an act for which the people of Greece have still not forgiven us. One lesson of the Arab Spring must surely be that our relations with rulers cannot be allowed to displace our concern for the fate of the peoples they rule—who will remember whether we were with them or against them as they sought to end oppression and direct their own destinies.

Defenders of the royal family in Bahrain and its suppression of protests calling for greater democracy often claim that the protests are in fact Iranian-inspired and even Iranian-run. Needless to say, the leaders of the various protest movements deny this angrily. I have tended to view these Bahraini government claims as unreliable and probably false, for it is too easy simply to paint the (mostly Shia) opposition as unpatriotic and tied to the Iranian regime. But now there is evidence that in at least one case, the accusations are correct. The Evening Standard newspaper in London revealed this week that the “Bahraini Freedom Movement” in London appears to be an Iranian front organization. The article states that: Saeed Shehabi, 56, runs the London-based Bahrain Freedom Movement, which seeks to topple the King of Bahrain’s dictatorship. But today it can be revealed that Dr Shehabi has made speeches supporting Iranian hardliners, and worked for 13 years in offices owned by the government of Iran….A Standard investigation found that the offices near Old Street where Dr Shehabi worked for 13 years are owned by the "Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran". When he started working there in the Nineties it was owned by Proudrose Ltd. Records show Proudrose’s mortgage was lent by the Iranian government and one of its directors, Dr Ali Helmi, is the cultural attaché at the Iranian Embassy in London. These facts, and others noted by the Standard, suggest that Shehabi is no human rights activist nor a genuine proponent of democracy in Bahrain. They do not, of course, discredit the Bahraini opposition nor do they justify the ways in which it has been repressed—sometimes brutally—by the government. But they are a reminder that Iran is indeed mucking around in Bahraini politics and that Bahrain has a legitimate interest in preventing this. Moreover, they should elicit strong denunciations from every genuine human rights organization in Bahrain, for Shehabi has damaged the cause.  

My post yesterday about Qatar’s support for the crushing of popular demonstrations in Bahrain has occasioned a fair amount of angry comment (here and on Twitter). My point was that when Qatar supports the call for democracy and free elections in Libya but assists in the smashing of demonstrations in Bahrain it is pursuing a foreign policy detached from principle. Has this been Qatar’s policy in Bahrain? First, Qatar sent troops to Bahrain as part of the GCC force organized to assist its government in ending the demonstrations. Second, Al Jazeera has clearly been pulling its punches about events in Bahrain. But some comments have protested that on the contrary Al Jazeera has covered the troubles in Bahrain and even done a whole program on it. True—in English only. Bahrain did protest the show, called “Shouting in the Dark," but who is kidding whom here? When the owners of Al Jazeera–namely the royal family-decide that the protests in Bahrain are to be covered fairly by Al Jazeera English only, and slighted in Al Jazeera Arabic, they are doing a huge favor to the Bahraini authorities. Al Jazeera’s influence does not come from what it broadcasts in English. So I continue to believe what I wrote yesterday: “Qatari diplomatic activity is designed to advance the interests of the tiny country and of its ruling family. Its adoption of the Libyan opposition, for example, is not based on any principle (such as liberty, democracy, or free elections), for the Qatari government and its TV station, Al Jazeera, have been notably silent about the crisis in Bahrain. There, they have backed the royal family and the Saudi-led GCC armed presence.” The only change I would make is to add that they have been silent in Arabic, where it counts.

Man reads Koran beside shelf stacked with them at Masjid Al Kabir, also known as Grand Mosque, during Ramadan in old city of Sanaa (Jumana El-Heloueh/Courtesy Reuters) Tik Root, on Al Jazeera, discusses the role of the youth in Yemen’s uprising, and their important role in forming a more stable Yemen. Daniel Serwer looks at what’s to come in Libya. Ahmed Ragheb claims that the justice system in Egypt cannot be trusted to hold former regime officials accountable.

Syrian men living in Jordan shout slogans against Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad during a demonstration in front of the Syrian embassy in Amman (Muhammad Hamed/Courtesy Reuters) The Sandmonkey gives his view on the pulse of Egypt’s revolution Mahmood on Mahmood’s den raises the issue of parliamentary powers in Bahrain Oped from Al Ahram Weekly on how Turkey and Syria’s relationship is reaching a boiling point.

On June 3 I wrote here about some good news from Bahrain. The king had lifted the state of emergency and called for dialogue, the main opposition group Al Wefaq had accepted the request, and the foreign minister (and soon after, the crown prince) had visited Washington to talk about compromise and negotiation. And yet. Today’s news does make one wonder if this is all window dressing. The crown prince had been expected to lead this dialogue. Today the government announced that it would instead be led by Speaker of Parliament Khalifa al Dhahrani, who unlike the crown prince is regarded as a hard-liner. Perhaps even more significantly, he is not a member of the royal family and has little decision-making power. Whether Al Wefaq can enter into negotiations with him is uncertain, and the group will surely wonder why the crown prince has backed—or been pushed—out. Watching events in Libya, Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia, the king should come to grips with reality: things cannot go back to the way they were in Bahrain last year. The sooner he enters a serious negotiation over constitutional reform with Al Wefaq and others, the sooner Bahrain can address and perhaps solve its problems. These are primarily political but the economic impact is direct. The Wall Street Journal reported on May 26 that “Ratings agency Moody’s cut Bahrain’s Thursday sovereign bond rating by one notch to Baa1, from A3, with a negative outlook, citing a significant deterioration in Arab country’s political environment. Moody’s said the rating cut was driven by the possible effects of ‘the recent political turmoil on the country’s growth prospects and its public finances.’ Moody’s added that ‘political tensions in the country remain high and there seems little prospect of the underlying causes of the unrest being peaceably resolved, at least over the short term.’ According to the rating agency, these events are likely to have damaged economic growth significantly, especially in service sectors such as tourism, trade and financial services.” Bahrain’s future is very much in doubt. One can only hope that the argument made by the crown prince and foreign minister in their Washington visit is more than a line put out to reassure anxious Westerners. If the hard-liners in the royal court win out, their victory will boomerang against the king and destroy the chances for Bahrain to resolve this crisis.

Though Bahrain’s crown prince is in the United States to restore frayed relations, the government is pressing its campaign against the protest movement, despite its ending of martial law and a call for national dialogue, says Middle East correspondent Roy Gutman.

The first real glimmers of positive news emerged from Bahrain in the last two days. The king lifted the state of emergency on June 1. He then called for “all necessary steps to prepare for a serious dialogue, comprehensive and without preconditions” that would “start from July 1,” and sent the interior minister to meet that same day with opposition parties. Those parties have now responded positively; the main group, al Wefaq, said it “welcomes the appeal from King Hamad for a serious, comprehensive dialogue based on the principle of national consensus.” The Government of Bahrain has a great deal of ground to make up, and must persuade the opposition parties and its Shia population that this offer of dialogue is serious. Previous efforts have failed, largely due to the conduct of the security forces. Even this week, while the government talked of dialogue, the New York Times reports that “security forces attacked peaceful protesters in more than 20 villages with rubber bullets, stun grenades, shotguns and tear gas, according to human rights observers in Bahrain.” Such conduct must stop or opposition leaders will be forced to suspend participation in any dialogue—even before it begins in July. Moreover, those discussions must cover how to deal with those who are now unjustly imprisoned and with the claims of those who were injured or killed this year. There must be some fair mechanism to investigate and punish abuses by the security forces. This week Bahrain’s Foreign Minister, Sheik Khaled, was in Washington meeting with U.S. Government officials and others interested in Bahrain, and next week Crown Prince Salman will visit here and see Secretary Clinton and the president. This is putting Bahrain’s best foot forward, for the crown prince is widely regarded as supportive of reforms and Sheik Khaled is a highly skilled and very popular envoy. According to Bahraini official sources, in the dialogue all constitutional reforms will be on the table. It is understood that some power must move from the king to the elected assembly, and that the assembly must be far more representative of Bahrain’s majority-Shia population than today’s gerrymanders permit. The impression I was given is that such objectives are acceptable to the king, and the main argument will be over timing and phasing of any reforms. It can’t happen all at once, officials say, especially “in our neighborhood” where Bahrain’s larger and richer neighbors will look askance at any serious progress toward constitutional monarchy. Bahrain can save itself if the king is truly open to such reforms. Of course, the opposition must act responsibly as well—but its leaders have largely done so since the beginning of this crisis. The king, the crown prince, and Sheik Khaled should concentrate in the coming weeks on restraining police actions that can poison the atmosphere once again. Given the history of police abuses in the last several months, and the apparent divisions within the royal family over whether to crush the opposition or talk with it, this may be the greatest short-term challenge.

Not so long ago Bahrain was considered one of the more liberal Arab states. No longer. The situation in Bahrain is deteriorating further, despite occasional government claims that things are stable and even improving. The most recent proof is the Bahraini treatment of the human rights officer at the U.S. Embassy, Ludovic Hood, who is being forced to leave the country after a vicious campaign against him. The story is told in a recent Miami Herald item entitled "U.S. Yanks Diplomat From Bahrain After He’s Threatened."  The U.S. diplomat was the target of anti-Semitic slurs and his address was published in a web site tied to the Bahraini government, a sure effort to intimidate. The Miami Herald story ends this way: "In his final message to his friends in Bahrain, Hood apologized that he had had to assume a low profile in his final weeks and couldn’t say goodbye. In his message, he sounded like a man ordered home on short notice. ’Hello,’ he wrote. ’I am leaving Bahrain today and moving back to Washington. I will start my new assignment at the State Department in June. I am sorry I was not able to say goodbye properly. Given recent developments affecting the Embassy, it was prudent for me to keep a low profile during my final weeks in Bahrain.’" The State Department has said little about the incident, but it is a mark of how bilateral relations have soured and should get more attention. This intimidation of an American official should be forcefully protested and condemned by the United States. It is the kind of incident that should have us thinking out loud about the future of the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain.

An anti-government protester flees after riot police fire rounds of tear gas to disperse them in the mainly Shi'ite village of Diraz (Hamad Mohammed/Courtesy Reuters) After being completely unplugged and out-of-touch for the better part of last week, I have returned to find that among a number of interesting (really, horrifying) developments in the Middle East, a Bahraini military court has sentenced four protesters to death for the alleged murder of two policemen. The fact that all four are Shia is only going to aggravate already rather tense relations between the Sunni minority and the Shia majority.  I traveled to Bahrain a bunch of times in the mid-2000s  and while it had a reputation for being a more open and generally laid back place than either Saudi Arabia or Qatar, the ruling Khalifa family have long ensured the island’s security with an iron fist.  Although the protests in Bahrain have coincided with uprisings around the region, they are nothing new.  The Bahraini authorities have often resorted to the use of force to keep the streets quiet. King Hamad made a good show of undertaking political reform in 2001, promulgating a new constitution in 2002, and also in 2002, reinstating a parliament that had been suspended for 27 years.  It did not amount to much.  Parties were banned, though something called “political societies” were permitted.  Human rights activists who highlighted the shortcoming of the Bahraini system were often harassed and arrested.  The whole window dressing quality to Hamad’s reform was brought into sharp relief for me in 2005 when I visited members of the Shura Council—the upper house of the parliament.  They didn’t seem to know exactly what they were supposed to do and broke into an argument about it among each other as I munched on sweets and watched the back and forth . At around the same time, Bahrain’s heir apparent, Crown Prince Salman (The American University in Washington  class of 1991), sought to ameliorate the sectarian tensions on the island with a program of “Bahrainization” of the workforce.  The goal was to create more employment opportunities for the Shia majority in order to give them a “stake in the system” thereby reducing political tensions.  Salman asked the consulting firm McKinsey to help out, but the Crown Prince’s efforts did not have the desired effect. This was mostly because, Bahraini employers have become hooked on cheap labor from South Asia and were reluctant to pay the higher wages—Bahrain’s overvalued dinar makes Manama the London of the Middle East in terms of cost of living and doing business— that citizens demand. Although Salman deserves credit for trying to address Shia economic dislocation, he made the fundamental mistake that Middle Eastern leaders have long made by emphasizing economic solution to political problems.   These guys are either the last Marxists—they believe every political development has some underlying economic explanation—or they are manifestly unable to confront reality.  To be sure, Bahrain’s Shia have economic grievances as do many people all over the Middle East, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the importance of ideas in this season of Arab unrest.  Bahrain’s protests like those in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen are about politics—people are demanding their freedom and basic human rights.  If it was anything else, Bahrain’s military tribunal would not be sentencing protesters to death.

Defenders of the crack-down in Bahrain have a story line. The government had to act to stop a down-hill slide into chaos and extremism fostered by Iran. The king’s goal was simply to freeze matters, and once that is done the time for compromise and concessions will have arrived. It is not a bad story, but every action the Government of Bahrain has taken in the last month contradicts it. Instead of reaching out to the responsible Shia political leadership and middle class, the king and his government are jailing and harassing them. The Washington Post summed it up in a troubling story today: “The targeting of more educated and prosperous members of the Shiite community is particularly worrisome, say local analysts, who fear it could remove a moderating element in political life….Like their Sunni neighbors, many wealthier Shiites have enjoyed lives of relative ease in this land of high-end shopping malls, restaurants and luxury homes. But after joining in the February protests with poorer Shiites, who have generally borne the brunt of discrimination and government disfavor, even middle-class Shiites are now subject to the full force of the government’s ire, according to opposition leaders.” This is the opposite of seeking compromise. As the Post reports, the crack-down “is reaching deep into Bahrain’s middle-class professions…potentially threatening the country’s long-term stability.” The government is now “targeting Shiites indiscriminately.” It is difficult to understand why the king believes this path leads anywhere but exile in London for him and his family. Bahrain has a Shia majority (once estimated at 70 percent, but probably lower than that now due to a campaign of naturalization of foreign-born Sunnis, especially those who serve in the army and police). The current actions against the Shia community will embitter all its members and decapitate its moderate political, economic, religious, and moral leadership. Future compromises will be far more difficult, and are perhaps already impossible. Why has the king taken this disastrous path? Clearly he has been urged and pressured to do so by his Sunni neighbors in the UAE and especially Saudi Arabia. The contempt for Shia and Shiism in Saudi Arabia is undoubtedly a key factor here, and the Saudis were concerned that an uprising by Bahraini Shia could spread across to the Shia in their own oil-rich Eastern Province. But the actions being taken in Bahrain now make it far more likely that this will be the outcome: Saudi Shia who see the Saudi government repressing Shia in Bahrain will become more, not less, embittered toward their own government. The Saudis also worried about opportunities for Iran to meddle in Bahrain and ultimately in Saudi Arabia itself.  But here again, the policy being followed will only create new chances for Iran by assuring enmity and political volatility in Bahrain. So the path being followed is disastrous. Perhaps it is not too late for outside figures to try to open a dialogue between the Government of Bahrain and the Shia community, but for that to work the king and the royal family must stop the persecution of the Shia leadership. As of now, they seem intent on crushing the Shia and eliminating all hope of a constitutional monarchy where the majority of Bahrain’s people share with the king a role in building the country’s future. If the king does not change course, he is guaranteeing a future of instability for Bahrain and may be dooming any chance that his son the crown prince will ever sit on the throne.

Opposition movements in Bahrain and Yemen are hobbled by societal and sectarian divisions that were finessed in Tunisia and Egypt, says Middle East expert Kristin Smith Diwan.

Have you heard that all big energy sources entail risk? I can’t count the number of times in the last few days that I’ve heard some variation on the following: “Yes, nuclear involves risk. But so does oil: Don’t you remember the BP disaster just last year?” Pause for a moment and think about that. For more than a month, people have been following developments in the Middle East with rapt attention, not only because of the inspiring potential for political change, but because of the clear consequences for oil, and hence for the U.S. economy. When President Obama took to the airwaves last Friday, it was not to encourage change in Libya or reform in Bahrain – it was to tell the American people that he was monitoring their gasoline prices and would take all necessary steps to protect them. When Saudi Arabia suppressed protests last week, it might have been a moment for mourning; instead, most Americans looked at the price of oil and breathed a sigh of relief. So why on earth do we reflexively turn to the Gulf oil spill when we want an example of oil-related risk? My hunch is that the nuclear situation sends us into an “environment” and “public safety” world; the Middle East situation, in contrast, fits in the worlds of “economics” and “security”. We seem incapable of thinking about both at the same time. Part of the reason for that, I’d guess, is that many peoples’ concerns – and most experts’ expertise – doesn’t span all the areas that ultimately matter. If you care passionately about the environment, you’re probably not an aficionado of Middle East politics; if you’re focused like a laser on macroeconomics, you’re probably don’t spend that much time thinking about the environmental risks of fracking. It doesn’t help that we don’t have good analytical tools to make judgments that cut across multiple dimensions of energy risk. My 2009 study on the Canadian oil sands attempted to develop one framework; many responses predictably ignored one of the two dimensions I was looking at. This may be the natural state of affairs, but it is an awful foundation for making coherent energy policy. Until we can think about security, economics, and environmental risk at the same time, we’re going to have a lot of trouble developing an energy policy that makes sense.

Bahrain’s security forces are loyal to the Sunni regime, which means the unrest isn’t likely to lead to collapse, says expert F. Gregory Gause III. Still, the protests pose a dilemma for the United States, which has chided the government but views Bahrain as an ally.