by Jay Romano
“These kids were killed by the police during our revolution.”
A week ago I landed in Bahrain. After exiting the comfort of the air-conditioned airport into the harsh desert heat, I jumped into a cab and sped from Muharraq to the capital, Manama, a major financial hub [...]]]>
by Jay Romano
“These kids were killed by the police during our revolution.”
A week ago I landed in Bahrain. After exiting the comfort of the air-conditioned airport into the harsh desert heat, I jumped into a cab and sped from Muharraq to the capital, Manama, a major financial hub for the region. The lightning fast sports cars, extravagant shopping malls, and bright lights beaming from the five-star hotels were my first impression of this tiny island kingdom. I felt as if I had arrived in a Middle Eastern Las Vegas.
While separated from Saudi Arabia by only a 16-mile causeway that links the two monarchies, Bahrain is truly a world apart in terms of social norms. By western standards, Bahrain is socially conservative, yet it is the most liberal Gulf state with respect to alcohol and gender norms.
Manama’s female drivers, live rock bands, easily available prostitutes, and bikini-clad women are publicly visible. Salafists from across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states mock the country, frequently referring to it as the “brothel of the Gulf.” For Saudis looking for a weekend getaway from Sharia law, Manama is indeed their Las Vegas. But I had visited Bahrain for a different reason: I wanted to understand the country’s political and social affairs.
I was determined to visit Sitra, a tiny island situated south of Manama and connected to the main island by a short causeway. While Bahrain’s Shia and Sunni Muslims live side by side throughout the country, Sitra’s native population is nearly 100 percent Shia. Bahrain’s Shia, who constitute 70 percent of the native population, say they suffer from job discrimination, political exclusion, and human rights abuses under the rule of the Sunni-dominated government, led by the al-Khalifa family since independence in 1971. Sitra is considered the heart of the Shia resistance to the Sunni monarchy. Since 2011, much of Bahrain’s violent unrest has taken place there.
Everyone—ranging from the US Department of State to all of my contacts in Manama—
advised me to avoid Sitra’s villages due to the risk of being caught in the crossfire of the relatively frequent violent clashes. Despite these warnings, I visited Sitra.
I took a taxi from one side of the causeway to the other and was dropped off at the Sitra Mall, adjacent to several car dealerships on the outskirts of the island’s villages. After walking along the side of the road for 15 minutes, I approached a major intersection. I immediately noticed government tanks and armored jeeps patrolling the main street.
I walked down a street littered with shards of broken glass. Countless vacant properties that appeared abandoned surrounded me. Absent in Sitra were the flashy skyscrapers and bright lights that Sitra’s residents are reminded of each day by simply turning their heads and looking across the water.
I headed off the main road to explore the villages. I soon approached a graveyard. While I stood there, two teenagers walked up behind me. I turned around and asked them if they spoke English. One said that he did.
“Can you tell me who is buried here?” I asked.
He replied, “These kids were killed by the police during our revolution.”
I asked him if I could get closer to take a better look. He responded, “Please do so.” The two continued down the road as I neared the graves.
Several minutes later I saw even more graveyards. I entered one and noticed a crying veiled woman. I departed in order to give her space to mourn her loss.
As I walked through the village, every car slowed down and the drivers and passengers stared at me. Along the dirt roads were trucks and sedans packed with people. What a contrast to the flashy Porsches and Lamborghinis that race through Manama’s first-world infrastructure.
By 2pm the afternoon heat prompted me to buy some water and juice at a nearby store. As I quenched my thirst, a local man slowly cruised by in his SUV before putting on the brakes. He rolled down his window and asked me in excellent English if I were a sailor in the US Navy (the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is stationed in Bahrain). Given that the US supports Bahrain’s government—which, according to Amnesty International, kills, tortures, and detains Shia men, women and children for their alleged role in threatening the kingdom’s security—I lied and told the man that I was an Italian tourist. We conversed for several minutes before I jumped in his SUV and accepted his generous offer for a tour.
We drove down the narrow dirt roads of Sitra’s villages. While most of the cement walls were covered with graffiti written in Arabic, we drove past one tag I could understand: “We will gain freedom with our blood.”
Huge rocks blocked off many roads. My guide explained that the locals had put them up “to protect their families from the police.”
Posters of Sayed Mahmood Sayed Mohsen, who was shot and killed by security forces dispersing an anti-government protest on May 21, 2014, are found on buildings across Sitra. Credit: Jay Romano
I saw hundreds of posters on the walls of buildings, most with the faces of Shia who were killed in 2011 by Bahraini and other GCC security forces that had entered the kingdom to crush anti-government demonstrations. One poster showed Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini. Another showed a Saudi Shia cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who has been sentenced to execution. Twelve days earlier, scores of Bahraini Shia had gathered on the streets of Sitra to hold a solidarity protest for Nimr.
Moments later we drove by the police station in Sitra. The compound was surrounded by a cement wall, tanks, roadblocks, and armed police sitting on folding chairs.
My companion drove me to more graves, all adjacent to small mosques scattered throughout Sitra’s villages. The man claimed either to have known all those who died during the uprising, or to have had contact with someone connected to the various Shia whose graves we visited. As we walked past the graves, he explained the gruesome details of their deaths, pointing out on his own body where the bullets had hit each person. He also described the hardship (poverty, unemployment, etc.) that had prompted them to take their grievances to the street, where they lost their lives.
While we were standing in one graveyard, he placed his hand on my shoulder and pointed across the water to the Manama skyline. “Jay, in Bahrain we have two countries. There is one country there with the lights, money, and tourists, and then there is Sitra. The western tourists whose governments back the king have no interest in coming to this Bahrain.”
Still pointing across the water he continued, “They only care about that Bahrain. Those people mean nothing to me, and I have nothing to offer them. However, I thank you for leaving your hotel in Manama to walk around Sitra.”
During the drive back to my hotel I demanded that he accept some money for his time. But as a pious man, he refused. Eventually he gave in after I stuffed some cash in his glove compartment.
As he dropped me off at my hotel he said, “Jay, you have a friend in Bahrain, so please tell me when you return to this country.” At that point I confessed that I was actually from the United States. He laughed and told me that he had suspected I was American. Before we parted he said, “Thank you for your money but I did not give you the tour to receive your money. I gave you the tour because I want you to return home and tell as many people as possible about the difference between the two Bahrains. Also, do not forget to show everyone your pictures because the BBC will never show its viewers the graves of Sitra.”
– Jay Romano (a pseudonym) is a freelance foreign affairs analyst in Washington, DC.
Photo: The grave of a child near the village of al-Kharijiya. Credit: Jay Romano
]]>by Thomas W. Lippman
It was like a movie in which different characters see the same events in completely different ways.
At one of those Washington think-tank panel discussions the other day, senior U.S. national security and military officials insisted that the American commitment to security and stability in the [...]]]>
by Thomas W. Lippman
It was like a movie in which different characters see the same events in completely different ways.
At one of those Washington think-tank panel discussions the other day, senior U.S. national security and military officials insisted that the American commitment to security and stability in the Persian Gulf is iron-clad and will not change. The U.S Navy’s Fifth Fleet and the 35,000 soldiers and sailors in the region are staying, they said, and Iran will not acquire or develop nuclear weapons. They reminded the audience that President Barack Obama, his secretaries of state and defense, and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have told all this to Gulf Arab leaders over and over, most recently during the president’s visit to Saudi Arabia in March.
“We are present in a major and significant way,” one senior Pentagon official said at this gathering, organized by the Atlantic Council. “We are not leaving and we are not inattentive.”
The next morning, different panelists, assembled by the Middle East Policy Council, acknowledged that the message had been delivered unequivocally and often, and agreed that Obama and the others were no doubt sincere. Unfortunately, they said, Gulf Arab leaders don’t believe it.
“They think we don’t have the will to uphold our principles,” said Mark T. Kimmitt, a former senior official of both the State and Defense departments. “It’s not about our strength on the ground. It’s about our willingness to use it.” Given the record of the past few years, he said, “There’s not a lot of reason for the Gulf Arabs to be happy.”
“There are deep structural sources of anxiety” about the United States among leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, said Colin Kahl, a deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East in Obama’s first term. First among these, he said, is “the widespread perception that the United States is simply politically exhausted” after more than a decade of war and has no appetite for further involvement. Witnessing the U.S. troop drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said, “They wonder when the U.S. will begin to draw down in the Gulf.” The GCC leaders were taken aback, he said, by the strong popular opposition among Americans to military intervention in Syria, and drew their own conclusions.
Michael Gfoeller, former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia, said the Saudis and others have been disconcerted by the way the United States and its partners have conducted nuclear negotiations with Iran without input from them. In their view, he said, Washington is proceeding “with almost no input from us and yet we are going to be the front line of what we think is going to be a nuclear armed Iran…They think that when we don’t consult with them it’s a sign that we don’t take their national security seriously.”
These panelists said it was useful that President Obama went to see King Abdullah and other senior princes in Riyadh, but not sufficient to overcome the doubts that have been built up about U.S. staying power. Ford Fraker, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said that a week ago he asked Prince Muqrin, now second in line to the Saudi throne, how he assessed the Obama-Abdullah meeting. Muqrin, who speaks fluent English, “looked at me and said, ‘We did have the opportunity to clarify a number of important issues,’ and that’s all he said,” Fraker reported.
The two forums amounted to a fascinating but also baffling conversation about a topic that has been a focus of analysis in Washington and the Gulf states for months. The United States and its allies in the region have compelling interests in common — combating al-Qaeda and its affiliates, seeking a solution in Syria, ensuring the free flow of oil through the Gulf, stabilizing Yemen and Iraq, and countering what they see as the malign activities of Iran in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Bahrain. The Gulf states buy American weapons, depend on the United States for military training and assistance with cyber-security issues, and share intelligence about terrorist financing. And these relationships have been in place for many years. Why, then, have the Gulf leaders, and particularly the Saudis, been so vocally unhappy about U.S. policy?
The first answer participants gave was the nuclear negotiations with Iran, from which they are excluded. In the view especially of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, panelists said, these negotiations are dangerous either way: if they fail, nothing will prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but if they succeed, sanctions will be lifted, Iranian oil exports will surge, and Iran will be free to pursue its quest for regional hegemony. Moreover, in the Gulf view, if the negotiations succeed, the United States will have another incentive to reduce its military commitments in the Gulf.
Gulf Arab leaders, panelists said, are well aware of the constraints that are curtailing Pentagon spending. Cuts will have to be made somewhere, and they see their region as a target, especially if the United States reaches some accommodation with Iran.
The Gulf leaders were shocked by the alacrity with which Washington turned its back on Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak after demonstrations against him broke out in 2011. They think “Maybe the United States won’t be a reliable ally for them,” Kahl said. These doubts have been stoked, he and other panelists said, by all the talk about growing U.S. oil output in the fracking boom, and the possibility that the United States will feel itself safely insulated from developments in the Gulf.
Despite assurances from Washington to the contrary, panelists said, the Saudis and Emiratis believe that the United States is focused exclusively on the nuclear issue in its negotiations with Iran, ignoring other troubling aspects of Iranian policy. Kahl said it’s actually a good idea to confine the current negotiations to the nuclear issue because Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani does not control the other Iranian activities that so trouble its neighbors. Those matters are under the jurisdiction of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Kahl said, and it would be counterproductive to bring the IRGC into the nuclear discussions.
In a separate commentary published during the same week as the panel discussions, Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote that, “One Saudi businessman complained to me recently that there was no discernible U.S. global strategy, and that its absence makes it impossible for Saudi Arabia to construct any strategy at all. The quandary is common among many U.S. allies, and it raises fundamental questions about U.S. commitments abroad. Is there anything for which U.S. allies can rely on the United States, and under what circumstances might it change? Equally confounding, how can America’s friends make themselves vital to the United States if the United States has no clear understanding and ordering of its own interests?”
In some ways, however, as several of the panelists noted, it is not just the United States that seems to be groping for an effective regional strategy. The six monarchies that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council have deep policy differences among themselves, about Iran, about Syria, and about the dangers of religious extremism. Oman, for example, hosted the secret diplomacy that led to the nuclear negotiations with Iran, and is reportedly planning a $1 billion natural gas pipeline link to the Islamic Republic. And on Saturday, the Washington Post reported that the United States has identified Kuwait as the major source of funding for jihadist groups fighting in Syria — groups that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are trying to defeat. If Alterman’s Saudi friend is having difficulty discerning a comprehensive U.S. strategy in the region, perhaps it’s not surprising.
Several of the panelists said that the key to assuaging the anxiety among GCC leaders is more and closer consultation, more often. It’s well and good for the president and cabinet members and officers from the U.S. Central Command to go to the region from time to time, they said, but the Gulf leaders want to see the deputy assistant secretaries and other policy worker bees out there more often. To some extent they made the Gulf leaders sound like spoiled children demanding mommy’s full attention right this minute.
Photo: President Barack Obama meets with King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during a bilateral meeting at Rawdat Khuraim in Saudi Arabia, March 28, 2014. Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
]]>A few days ago, Bahraini officials announced they “foiled an attempt to smuggle explosives and arms, some made in Iran and Syria, into the country by boat.” Around the same time, the government also contended it had defused a car bomb and seized weapons in different locations in the country.
[...]]]>A few days ago, Bahraini officials announced they “foiled an attempt to smuggle explosives and arms, some made in Iran and Syria, into the country by boat.” Around the same time, the government also contended it had defused a car bomb and seized weapons in different locations in the country.
The Al Khalifa regime maintains it is fighting terrorism, which it unabashedly equates with pro-reform activists. The regime accuses Iran of plotting and driving acts of “terrorism” on the island. Regardless of Iran’s perceived involvement in the smuggling of weapons, it is important to put this latest episode in context.
First, although Iran might benefit from continued instability in Bahrain, since Bahrain became independent in 1971 Iran has not engaged in any activity to remove the Sunni Al Khalifa from power. In 1970-71, the Shah of Iran accepted the United Nations’ special plebiscite in Bahrain, which resulted in granting the country independence. Successive Iranian governments under the Ayatollahs since the fall of the Shah have not questioned Bahrain’s independence.
Furthermore, over the years most Bahraini Shia looked for Iraqi and other Arab, not Iranian, grand Ayatollahs as sources of emulation or marja’ taqlid. The Shia al-Wefaq political party, which some elements within the Al Khalifa ruling family have accused of being a conduit for Iran, has consistently supported genuine reform through peaceful means.
Al-Wefaq leaders, some of whom have studied and lived in Iran in recent decades, have supported the government’s call for dialogue with the opposition and have endorsed the government’s call for dialogue with the opposition and the Crown Prince’s initiative for reform and dialogue. The Al Khalifa’s response to al-Wefaq’s peaceful position has been to arrest its two most prominent leaders, Sheikh Ali Salman and Khalil al-Marzooq.
Second, regardless of the public relations campaign the Bahraini regime is waging against Iran, it continues its arrests and sham trials and convictions of Bahraini citizens. This includes doctors and health providers, young and old peaceful protesters, and more recently athletes. Their only “sin” is that they are members of the Shia majority in a country ruled by a Sunni minority regime.
In a recent article, James Dorsey of Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies detailed the large number of Shia athletes, players and champions — soccer, handball, tennis, jiu-jitsu, gymnastics, beach volleyball, and car racing — who have been arrested and given lengthy jail sentences. Many of these players, who hail from Diraz and other neighboring Shia villages, were hastily tried and convicted for expressing pro-reform views.
Third, in a recent interview with the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Qabas, Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni, who headed the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), expressed his disappointment at the government’s failure to implement some of the key recommendations in the report. As a reminder, King Hamad had created BICI and formally and publicly received and accepted its final report.
No one within the regime has been held accountable for the unlawful acts and crimes detailed in the BICI report. According to Bassiouni, the government’s inaction on the recommendation has raised serious doubts within “civil society institutions and human rights organizations” about the regime’s commitment to genuine reform.
Fourth, the Bahraini regime, like its Saudi counterpart, is stoking a deadly sectarian war in the Gulf and elsewhere in the region. The ruling family is very concerned that should Iran conclude a deal with the international community on its nuclear program, Al Khalifa would become marginalized as a Gulf player.
The regime is particularly worried that as a small island country with minuscule oil production, Bahrain might become a marginal player in regional and international politics. It behooves the Al Khalifa regime to know that if it fails to work with its people to bring stability to the country, it will lose its standing in Washington and other Western capitals.
As the Bahraini majority loses confidence in the regime, it would not be unthinkable for Saudi Arabia and other regional and international powers, including the United States, to consider Al Khalifa a liability. The key mission of the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet is not to protect the repressive Al Khalifa regime. It serves regional stability, strategic waterways, and other global US interests. Its commitment to Al Khalifa or to the Bahrain port is neither central nor irrevocable.
As the Bahraini regime continues its campaign against Iran, it should remember that by refusing to engage the largely peaceful opposition for meaningful reform, it has created an environment for Sunni extremism and anti-Shia radicalism. The recent history of intolerant religious proselytization instructs us that such an environment invariably leads to terrorism. This is a domestic phenomenon regardless of whether the intercepted arms came from Iran or not. One also should recognize that growing frustration among dissidents will drive some of the youth to become more radicalized and turn to violence.
If regimes are willing to tear their countries apart in order to stay in power as the Al Khalifa ruling family seems to be doing, domestic terrorism is an assured outcome. Today, we see this phenomenon in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere. The Islamic State in Syria and the Levant (ISIL) did not emerge in a vacuum. Radical, intolerant, Sunni jihadism, which Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have been pushing in Syria, and before that in Iraq, is the kernel from which terrorism sprouts. Eventually it will come home to roost.
As I wrote previously, the Al Khalifa regime’s survival remains possible only if the ruling family stops playing its repressive apartheid game and engage its people with an eye toward power sharing and genuine reform.
King Hamad still has an opportunity to implement the BICI recommendations comprehensively and transparently. He could assemble a group of distinguished Bahrainis, Sunni and Shia, and task them with writing a new constitution that would include a nationally elected parliament with full legislative powers and checks and balances over the executive branch. This should be done soon because the King and the ruling family are running out of time.
Photo: Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmad Al Khalifa meets with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Sept. 30, 2013 in New York.
]]>This week’s decision by the Bahraini court of appeals to uphold the prison terms against Bahraini opposition activists is a travesty of justice and an indication that Bahraini repression continues unabated.
Bahraini officials, when confronted with angry world reaction to the court’s decision, cynically hid behind the claim they would [...]]]>
This week’s decision by the Bahraini court of appeals to uphold the prison terms against Bahraini opposition activists is a travesty of justice and an indication that Bahraini repression continues unabated.
Bahraini officials, when confronted with angry world reaction to the court’s decision, cynically hid behind the claim they would not interfere in the proceedings of their “independent judiciary”.
Despite the threat to U.S. national interests and the security of U.S. citizens in Bahrain and elsewhere in the Gulf, Washington remains oblivious to the ruling family’s violent crackdown against peaceful protesters in the name of fighting “foreign elements”. Pro-democracy Bahrainis are wondering what we are waiting for.
Because of our muted reaction to what’s happening in Bahrain, the ruling family and their Saudi benefactors have not taken seriously Western support for democratic transitions in the Middle East.
The United States and Britain maintain deep economic and security relations with these states but also enjoy strong leverage, including the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet, which they must revisit in the face of continued egregious violations of basic human rights by some of these regimes. Bahraini civil rights organisations and activists are expecting the United States to use its leverage to end regime repression.
Despite their pro-Western stance, there is nothing exceptional about the autocratic Gulf Arab regimes. And they should no longer be given a pass on the importance of democratic reform.
Staying in power will require Bahrain’s Al Khalifas and other Gulf tribal family rulers to do more than push a vicious sectarian policy and employ slick public relations firms. Their cynical and deadly game might buy them some time, but, in the end, they will not be able to escape their peoples’ wrath.
In the absence of genuine reforms in the next three years, the Gulf’s autocratic regimes will be swept aside by their peoples. The “people power” that emerged from the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and now Syria, cannot be kept out of these tribal states. In reality, they all have been touched by peoples’ demands for dignity and justice.
While Iran might be exploiting the protest movement to discredit these regimes, the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain goes back to the 1960s and 1970s – way before the Islamic Republic came on the scene.
Even more troubling for U.S. national security are the continued efforts by Al Khalifa to whip up anti-American attitudes among Bahrain’s more rabidly anti-Shia and xenophobic Sunnis. Bahrain and some of their Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) allies perceive the growing rapprochement between the U.S. and the new Islamic democrats, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Tunisia, as a sign of tacit opposition to Gulf autocrats.
They believe the U.S will throw them under the bus if their peoples rise up against them. They also worry that if the nuclear issue in Iran is resolved, a possible U.S. rapprochement with Tehran would embolden their Shia communities in their struggle for equality and justice.
For 40 years, Prime Minister Khalifa has been the key opponent to reform in Bahrain. In recent ears, however, a new generation within the ruling family, known as the “Khawalids,” has taken up the anti-Shia, anti-reform, and anti-American cry.
They have used pro-government newspapers, blogs, and social media to vilify the Shia, the United States, and the pro-democracy movement. With tacit government encouragement, they frequently describe elements of the opposition as “diseased cells” that must be removed from society.
In the process, they have encouraged extremist Salafi and other Sunni groups to spread their message of divisiveness, sectarianism, and hate.
What Bahrain and the other Gulf sheikhdoms fail to realise is that when they encourage extremist groups to fight the “enemies” of the regime, a time will come when radical Salafi “jihadists” will turn against the regime. The Saudi experience in Afghanistan and Iraq should offer them a sobering lesson. This dangerous game does not bode well for their survival.
As domestic challenges also grow in Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom’s interest in Bahraini domestic policy will diminish. Recent estimates indicate Saudi oil exports over the next decade and a half will shrink significantly because of growing domestic needs for energy to generate power and desalinate seawater.
When this happens, Al Khalifa will have to face their people on their own.
- Emile Nakhleh is the former director of the CIA’s Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program and author of “A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World”.
]]>Bahrain remains a repressive state, and civil rights are violated daily. Forty-one years ago, Bahrain celebrated its first year independence as a budding democracy. This December it will celebrate its forty-second independence as a practitioner of repression and reprehensible autocracy. For all intents and purposes, Washington unfortunately continues to tolerate [...]]]>
Bahrain remains a repressive state, and civil rights are violated daily. Forty-one years ago, Bahrain celebrated its first year independence as a budding democracy. This December it will celebrate its forty-second independence as a practitioner of repression and reprehensible autocracy. For all intents and purposes, Washington unfortunately continues to tolerate Manama’s undemocratic actions.
The June 18 report by the Bahrain Center for Human Rights depicts a deteriorating situation in Bahrain accentuated by mass arrests, excessive force against civilians and protesters–including children–torture of prisoners, and trials in military courts. Bahrain is heading down a dark path of instability, sectarianism, violence, and potential terrorism under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa, uncle of King Hamad and great uncle of Crown Prince Salman.
Despite these policies, the demands of Bahraini reformists, Sunnis and Shia alike, are reasonable and doable. In fact, they offer al-Khalifa an opportunity to turn the country around. Most analysts judge the demands for a return to the 1973 constitution, a freely elected national legislature, an independent civilian judiciary, and a transparent government the backbone of good governance and the basic ingredients for democracy. Yet in order to stay in power, Prime Minister Khalifa is not interested in dialogue with opposition activists despite their reasonable demands.
Public opinion polls indicated over the years that majorities of Bahrainis and other Arabs supported these principles and hoped the United States would urge Arab governments to implement them. During my government service I briefed senior Bush administration officials on these points and their long-term implications.
The glimmer of hope for democratic reform that existed in Bahrain in those years has all but faded. The US’s relations with that country remain very friendly. The Fifth Fleet continues to operate out of Mina Salman, falsely giving Khalifa and his hard-line faction within the ruling family the impression that America stands by Bahrain despite its systematic mistreatment of the majority of its people.
Demands for good governance and social justice have been advocated as far back as the early 1970s, when the first fair and free election for the Constituent Assembly was held. Then and now Sunni and Shia opposition called for democracy under the umbrella of the ruling family. Then and now, the Prime Minister has strenuously objected to meaningful reform and accused the opposition of treason and sedition.
Bahrain enjoyed a short-lived democratic experience right after independence in the 1972-75 period because of the leadership of the Amir of Bahrain, Sheikh Isa bin Salman al-Khalifa, father of the King and brother of the Prime Minister. He overruled his brother’s opposition to political reform and insisted that family rule and democracy are not incompatible. Bahrain’s brush with democracy forty years ago, which included a constituent assembly to draft a constitution in 1972 and a constitution and a national assembly in 1973, ended in 1975 with the dissolution of the national assembly and the suspension of the constitution.
Following the demise of the democratic experiment, al-Khalifa ruled by decree, and the country was gripped by fear and systematic violations of human rights. The Prime Minister, with the support of a coterie of Sunni hardliners, emerged as the key decision maker in the economic, political, and national security life of the country. The Shia were (and are) excluded from serving in the armed forces and the security services, including in leadership positions and in key ministries.
Three factors led to the end of the democratic period in the early 1970s: a) the questioning of the domestic security law, including the agreement with the US to station elements of the US Navy at the Jufair facility in Manama; b) calls for a transparent national budget, including the personal budget of the Amir; and c) pressure from Saudi Arabia to scuttle the democratic experiment. Then and now, Saudi Arabia has used its economic hold on Bahrain and military hegemony within the GCC to oppose all democratic tendencies in the Gulf Arab states.
The stillborn democratic experiment of the early 1970s was repeated in the 2001-2002 when King Hamad raised false hopes for reform. The only consequence of those “reforms” was a change in the ruler’s title from Amir to King! The Prime Minster and his Saudi supporters, however, remain the real power behind the throne.
To counter the ruling family’s fears of a Shia avalanche, it’s good to remember that the first free elections in the early 1970s—arguably the only free and fair elections in Bahrain—showed that neither the Sunni minority nor the Shia majority were monolithic groups. They voted for different candidates and different lists, ranging from religious, to nationalist, to leftist, and to Ba’thist.
Pro-reform activists since the early 1970s have included Sunni and Shia. They did not call for removing the al-Khalifa from power or establishing a Shia majority rule.
Where Do We Go from Here and Why Should We Care?
If the al-Khalifa persist in opposing genuine reform, the window of compromise will rapidly close and hope for dialogue will vanish. Violence will escalate, calls for regime change will become more vocal and the US will be blamed for the impasse. This is a recipe for lawlessness and terrorism.
The pro-democracy demands that most Bahrainis agree on have been identified in three key documents since the Arab Spring touched Bahrain a year and a half ago. They are the Manama document, the Crown Prince’s statement, and the National Encounter statement. They called for a representative parliament with full legislative powers, fair and free elections through equitable electoral districts and a review of the naturalization law; merit, not religious affiliation as basis for employment in the government and the military and security agencies; and addressing administrative and financial corruption as well as the sectarian impasse.
More recently, demands have included calls for the removal of the Prime Minister who has been in power since the country’s independence 41 years ago. Opposition figures believe no credible dialogue could be conducted with the opposition under auspices of the Prime Minister who, in their eyes, is no longer a legitimate leader of their country.
As a backdrop to potential dialogue, the al-Khalifa ruling family in reality have been fortunate in that most observers judge the demands for reform fair and reasonable. They’ve called for democracy and so far not regime change.
Since the democratic experiment was aborted in 1975, real power in the country has been concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister. His corruption, patronage, control of internal security, dictatorial running of the cabinet, visceral hatred of the Shia and Iran, and dependence on Saudi military and financial support have helped him cement his position. Khalifa objected to the promulgation of the constitution in 1973 and views genuine reform as a threat to him and to the family. The King and his son Crown Prince Salman, for all intents and purposes, have been marginalized.
The untold story in all of this is the pervasive and sinister influence of Saudi Arabia on Bahrain. Such influence dates back to 1971, one year before independence, when Saudi Arabia even objected to Bahrain declaring its independence because the Saudis wanted Bahrain to become a member of the United Arab Emirates. Of course, Bahrain and Qatar left the three-year unity talks with the other emirates and declared their respective independence.
The Saudis have controlled the purse of the Bahraini Amir over the years by giving him the oil from the Saudi Abu-Sa’fa field. Saudi influence is more pervasive now than ever with the presence of Saudi troops on the island and with the talk of unification between the two countries. A unity with Saudi Arabia appeals to al-Khalifa and his old guard colleagues but is strongly opposed by mainstream liberal Sunnis and the Shia majority.
Washington has several opportunities to help Bahrain institute genuine reforms. It should reach out to the King, his son Salman, and the deputy Prime Minister Shaykh Muhammad bin Mubarak, who for many years was the foreign minister of Bahrain. They should be strongly encouraged to initiate dialogue with different segments and personalities of Bahraini society, especially some of those who are part of the “National Encounter.” The Sunni and Shia supporters of the National Encounter represent the center of Bahraini society and are highly respected by their countrymen. Prime Minister Khalifa cannot be a legitimate or credible partner in this dialogue.
The administration should make it very clear to the king and his son that Arab autocracy has run its course and that if no genuine reforms are instituted, calls for reform could quickly turn to regime change. They should be told unequivocally that, the Saudi anti-Shia, Sunni-based, counter-revolution policy will fail and that al-Khalifa will be unable to stem the tide of protests despite the bloody crackdown and continued arrests, torture, and kangaroo trials.
Although Egypt, Syria, and Bahrain are different cases, Washington’s support of democracy in the first two countries is not similarly pursued in Bahrain. Consequently, the US is beginning to suffer from a perception of hypocrisy and a double standard. If Manama continues to respond to its citizens’ demands violently and repressively, frustrated citizens will come to view the US naval presence in their country as part of the problem.
The Fifth Fleet would then become a magnet for potential terrorism against our people. While it would be naïve to expect the Fifth Fleet to leave the island anytime soon, a conversation with the ruling family about our presence should give them pause.
–Emile Nakhleh is the former Director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at the CIA and author of A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World and Bahrain: Political Development in a Modernizing Society
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