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This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Arab Spring uprisings. Two previous commentaries this week have dealt with the geopolitics of those momentous events. This third part below is a personal reflection by the author who found himself unexpectedly embroiled in the maelstrom. It was life-changing…

I had been living in Bahrain for two years before the tumultuous events of the Arab Spring exploded in early 2011. Before that turmoil ignited, I was working as an editor on a glossy business magazine covering the Gulf region and its oil-rich Arab monarchies. But in many ways, I hadn’t a clue about the real social and political nature of Bahrain, a tiny island state nestled between Saudi Arabia and the other big Gulf oil and gas sheikhdoms of Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman.

During my corporate media employment I enjoyed a charmed life: a hefty tax-free salary, and a swanky apartment with rooftop swimming pool, jacuzzi and gym, which overlooked the sparkling Gulf sea and other glittering buildings that seemed to sprout up from reclaimed spits of land off the coast.

It was all weirdly artificial, if not hedonistically enjoyable. The luxury and glamor, the opulence. Unlike the other Gulf states, Bahrain had a distinctly more liberal social scene – at least for the wealthy expats. There were endless restaurants offering cuisine from all over the world. There were bars that freely sold alcohol which is “haram” in the other strictly-run Gulf Islamic monarchies. There were loads of nightclubs and loads of pretty hookers, most of them from Thailand and the Philippines. It all had the atmosphere of Sin City and forbidden fruit for the picking.

I later realized that Bahrain was not “cosmopolitan” as the business magazines and advertisements would gush about. That was just a euphemism for a vast system of human trafficking. All the service businesses were worked with menial people from Asia and Africa who were cheap and indentured labor. Where were the ordinary Bahrainis? What did they do for a living? In the cocooned expat life, the ordinary Bahrainis didn’t exist. Rich expats were there to enjoy tax-free salaries, glamorous glass towers, loads of booze and, if desired, loads of cheap sex.

My wake-up call came when my so-called professional contract was terminated after two years. That was in June 2010. Like a lot of other expats, my job came a cropper because of the global economic downturn that hit after the Wall Street crash during 2008. Advertising revenue failed to materialize for the magazine I was employed on. The British owners of the publishing house – Bahrain is a former British colony – told me, “Sorry old chap, but we can employ two Indians on half your salary.”

So that was it. I was out on the street. Going back to Ireland was not a realistic option. The economy was crap there too and job prospects dim. So I decided to hang in there in the Gulf and apply for jobs across the region. I downsized to a more modest apartment and lived off some savings. The job hunting was the usual wearying, self-debasing grind. “There’s nothing more than I would desire than to work as editor on your prestigious oil and gas trade magazine in Dubai.” Copy and paste as required for countless emailed job applications.

Then came the Arab Spring. The entire region of North Africa and Middle East erupted at the end of 2010, first in Tunisia then in the new year spilling over to Egypt and beyond. Watching TV news was like watching a satellite map of a cyclone sweeping across countries. It was an unstoppable force of nature. There were protests flaring up in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the Emirates, and they soon arrived in Bahrain. The rallying call among the masses was for more democratic governance, for free and fair elections, for economic equity.

Little did I know during my earlier charmed expat existence, but Bahrain was a particularly explosive powder-keg. Later, however, I was an unemployed journalist who suddenly found himself in the middle of a storm. It was only then that I began to really understand what Bahrain was all about. I mean the ugly, brutish nature of this “kingdom”.

To be honest, I wasn’t looking for work as a freelance reporter. I had done that in a previous life in Ireland. I was still a journalist, but reporting on political news wasn’t appealing anymore.

During my fruitless job-hunting period for a “dream number” in Dubai, I filled in my time and tried to earn a bit extra by hawking around bars in Bahrain with a guitar and microphone. I had done a bit of that in my previous life in Ireland, not very successfully mind you. But I thought I’d give it a go in Bahrain. On February 14, 2011, I was doing a gig at Mansouri Mansions hotel in the Adliya district of Manama, the capital. It was Valentine’s night. There’s me singing cheesy love songs – Elvis’ ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You’ – and there were hardly any customers. The place was dead.

Then the word came around. “We’re closing early. There’s trouble on the streets.” The whole city was eerily quiet. The Bahrain uprising had begun, not in the capital, but in the outlying towns and villages. On February 14, a young Bahraini man Ali Mushaima was shot dead by state security forces during protests. I was still oblivious to the extent of what was happening.

Overnight the atmosphere in Bahrain was changing to a much more menacing, volcanic one. There was immense popular anger over the young man’s killing.

I was in a taxi in the Juffair area of Manama going to enquire about doing a music gig at another bar. My petty concerns were shattered by the young taxi man who was animated about the protests and the death of Ali Mushaima the night before. The taxi man – Yousef, who I got to know – explained to me about Bahrain’s history. About how the majority of the people are Shia muslims who have lived for centuries under a despotic Sunni monarchy. The Al Khalifa royals were originally from the Arabian Peninsula, a clan of raiders and bandits. They invaded Bahrain as pirates in the 18th century and were made the rulers over the island by the British who wanted a strong-arm regime to look after their colonial possession and sea routes to India, the so-called jewel in the British imperial crown. The Khalifa clan would later become obscenely wealth after oil was discovered in Bahrain in the 1930s, the first such discovery of oil in the Gulf, predating that of Saudi Arabia’s. Over the decades, the Bahraini majority would be marginalized and impoverished by their British-backed rulers.

I asked Yousef, the young taxi man, “So what do you make of all these wealthy high-rise buildings and the glamor of Bahrain?” He replied, “It means nothing to us – the Shia people of Bahrain. We are strangers in our own land.”

Yousef appealed to me to attend a protest that night. It was at the Pearl Roundabout, a major intersection and landmark sculpture in Manama. The protesters were taking their grievances right to the very capital, not confining themselves to the outlying squalid towns and villages where the Shia majority were forced to live in ghettoes by the Khalifa regime.

What I encountered was a revelation. Suddenly I felt I was finally meeting the people of Bahrain. Tens of thousands were chanting for the regime to fall. The atmosphere was electric but not at all intimidating for me. People were eager to explain to this foreigner what life was really like in Bahrain, as opposed to the artificial images that plaster business magazines and Western media advertisements for rich investors.

Then I knew right there that there was a story to be told. And there I was ready and willing to tell it.

The protests were quickly met with more violence from the Bahraini so-called Defense Forces. “Defense Forces”, that is, for the royal family and their despotic entourage. The protesters were unarmed and non-violent, albeit passionate in their demands for democracy.

The Pearl Roundabout became a permanent encampment for the protesters. Tents were set up for families to rest in. Food stalls were teeming. A media center was operated by young Bahraini men and women. There was an exhilarating sense of freedom and of people standing up for their historic rights.

For the next three weeks, the Khalifa regime was on the ropes. The police and army were overwhelmed by the sheer number of protesters. At rallies there were easily 200,000-300,000 people at a time. For an island of only one million, there was a palpable sense that the long-oppressed majority had awakened to demand their historic rights against the imposter Khalifa regime. People were openly declaring, “the Republic of Bahrain”. This was a revolution.

In a lucky break, I was filing reports for the Irish Times and other Western media. The money was much appreciated, but more importantly there was an edifying, inspirational story to be told. A story about people overcoming tyranny and injustice.

All that would change horribly on March 14 when the Saudi and Emirati troops invaded Bahrain. The invasion had the support of the United States and Britain. What followed in the next few days was brutal repression and killing of peaceful protesters. The Pearl Roundabout was routed by indiscriminate state violence. Its sculpted monument was demolished to erase the “vile” memory of uprising. Men, women, medics, opposition thinkers and clerics were rounded up in mass detention centers. People were tortured and framed up in royal courts, sentenced to draconian prison terms. To this day, 10 years on, many of the Bahraini protest leaders – many of whom like Hassan Mushaimi and Abduljalil al-Singace I interviewed – remain languishing in jail.

However, a strange thing happened. Just when the story was becoming even more interesting – if not heinous – I found the Western media outlets were no longer open for reports. Some of my reports to the Irish Times on the repression were being heavily censored or even spiked. The editors back in Dublin were telling me that the news agenda was shifting to “bigger events” in Libya and Syria.

The corporate news media were shifting their focus to places where Western governments had a geopolitical agenda. Genuine journalistic principles and public interest didn’t matter. It was government agendas that mattered. The Irish Times and myriad other derivative media outlets were following the agenda set by the “majors” like the New York Times, CNN, the Guardian, the BBC and so on, who were in turn following the agendas set by their governments.

For Washington and London and other Western governments, the Arab Spring became an opportunity to foment regime change in Libya and Syria. The protests in those countries were orchestrated vehicles to oust leaders whom Western imperial states wanted rid off. Muammar Gaddafi in Libya was murdered in October 2011 by NATO-backed jihadists. Syrian President Bashar Al Assad nearly succumbed but in the end managed to defeat the Western covert war in his country thanks to the allied intervention of Russia and Iran.

All the while, the Western media were telling their consumers that Libya and Syria were witnessing pro-democracy movements, rather than the reality of NATO-sponsored covert aggression for regime change.

A person might be skeptical of claims that Western media are so pliable and propagandist. I know it for a fact because when I was reporting on the seismic events in Bahrain – which were truly about people bravely and peacefully fighting for democracy – the Western media closed their doors. They weren’t interested because there were “bigger events elsewhere”. Bahrain, like Yemen, would be ignored by the Western media because those countries didn’t serve the Western geopolitical objectives. Whereas Libya and Syria would receive saturation coverage, saturated that is with Western imperial propaganda.

Bahrain was and continues to be ignored by Western media because it is an integral part of the Saudi-led Gulf monarchial system which serves Washington and London’s imperial objectives of profiteering from oil, propping up the petrodollar and sustaining massive weapons sales. Democracy in Bahrain or in any other of the Gulf regimes would simply not be tolerated, not just by the despotic rulers therein but by their ultimate patrons in Washington and London.

I continued to report on the regime’s atrocities in Bahrain. My reports would be taken by alternative media sites like Global Research in Canada and indie radio talk shows in the United States. The money wasn’t great, but at least I could try to get the story out. In June 2011, four months after the Arab Spring began in Bahrain, the regime copped my critical reporting. I was summoned over a “visa irregularity” to the immigration department but instead was met by surly military police officers who told me I was “no longer welcome in the kingdom of Bahrain”. I was given 24 hours to leave “for my own safety”.

I returned to Ireland where after a few months I would relocate to Ethiopia in September 2011 to work as a freelance journalist for Global Research, initially. Later I began to work for Iran’s Press TV and Russian media. I first started working for this online journal, Strategic Culture Foundation, in late 2012. And my best move? I married an Ethiopian woman whom I had met in Bahrain during the Arab Spring.

Witnessing the struggle for democracy and justice in Bahrain was a privilege, one that I hardly expected or even wanted initially. But it fell to me. I witnessed such bravery and kindness among long-suffering Bahraini people who shared their grievances with generosity and graciousness despite the horror and oppression around them. Their struggle continues in spite of the lying, conniving Western governments and their media lackeys.

Ten years ago this week, the Bahraini people launched a daring, peaceful uprising against a despised and despotic monarchial regime. During the next four weeks, the Al Khalifa regime was rocked to its shaky foundations as hundreds of thousands of Bahrainis took to the streets of the Persian Gulf island state.

What followed, however, was a crucial – if despicable – intervention by Britain and the United States which unleashed a wave of brutal repression – a repression that continues to this day. Without this British and American operation, the Bahraini regime would have fallen to a popular uprising.

At stake for London and Washington was not just the tiny island of Bahrain itself but the stability of the entire chain of Persian Gulf monarchies, principally Saudi Arabia. The Gulf sheikhdoms are essential for maintaining the geopolitical interests of the Western powers in the Middle East, for propping up the petrodollar system which is paramount to American economic sustenance, and prolonging lucrative trade for British and American weapons manufacturers.

If Bahrain were to succumb to a democratic uprising by its people demanding free and fair elections, independent rule of law, more equitable economic governance, and so on, then the Gulf monarchies would be “threatened” by example. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman are the other Gulf states which are ruled over by monarchs. They are all clients of Western powers, facilitating American and British military bases across the region which are vital for power projection, for example prosecuting wars and confronting designated enemies like Iran. Bahrain hosts the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet base as well as a new British naval base that was opened in 2016. In short, Bahrain could not be allowed to attain democracy as that would have a domino effect across the entire region jeopardizing U.S. and British interests.

The democratic aspirations of the Bahraini people are poignantly apposite. The majority of the indigenous population are followers of Shia Islam with many cultural connections to ancient Iran which lies to the north across the narrow Gulf sea. The Bahraini rulers descend from a colonial settler tribe which invaded the island in the 18th century. The Khalifa tribe hailed from the Arabian Peninsula originally. Their occupation of Bahrain was one of conquest and pillage. Unlike most Bahrainis the usurpers professed to following Sunni Islam and held the native population in contempt, lording over them and imposing arbitrary, extortionate levies under pain of death. But the British Empire constructed the new rulers into a monarchy in 1820 in order to perform a sentinel duty over the island in a key waterway leading to Britain’s imperial jewel in the crown, India. The British Empire had similar protectorate arrangements with all the other Gulf Arab territories.

Down through the centuries, British colonial officers and soldiers were relied on to enforce the Khalifa regime in Bahrain. Uprisings by the people would recur periodically and would be violently suppressed by British security forces.

The pattern was repeated during the 2011 Arab Spring revolts which swept across North Africa and the Middle East. Some of these revolts were manipulated or fomented by Western powers for regime change, such as in Syria and Libya. But in Bahrain, it was a truly democratic impulse that galvanized the Shia majority to once again demand their historic rights against what was viewed as an imposter, despotic regime.

Such was the regime’s shaky hold on power that the tide of popular uprising nearly swept it aside during the four weeks following the beginning of the Bahrain uprising on February 14, 2011. This author was present during this tumultuous time which saw up to 500,000 people take to the streets – nearly half the population. Pearl Roundabout in the capital, Manama, became a de facto “Republic of Bahrain” with peaceful encampments and daily throngs defiantly telling King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa that it was “game over” for his crony regime. It was a heady time and the regime’s imminent perilous fate was palpable. Plunging the people into a bloodbath would be the escape route for the rulers and their Western sponsors.

On March 14, 2011, thousands of troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded Bahrain and began a bloody repression against unarmed protesters. People were rounded up for mass-detention and torture. Young men were shot dead at point-blank range. The vicious repression that began a decade ago continues to this day – albeit ignored by Western news media. All of the Bahraini pro-democracy leaders languish in prisons without due process. Several prisoners have been executed for alleged terrorist crimes after “confessions” were beaten out of them.

Only days before the Saudi-Emirati invasion of Bahrain, on March 9, 2011, the regime was visited by senior British and American security officials. On the British side were Sir Peter Ricketts, the national security advisor to then Prime Minister David Cameron, as well as General Sir David Richards, the head of British military. In a second separate meeting, on March 11, three days before the onslaught, the Khalifa regime was visited by then U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. We don’t know the details of those discussions but media reports stated at the time that the British and Americans were “offering their support for the royal family”.

Britain and the United States worked together to kill the Bahrain revolution of 2011 and its people’s long-held aspirations for democratic governance. The repression goes on with British and American officials frequently visiting Bahrain to express support for the Khalifa regime. Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited the island in August 2020 and fawned over the regime for its support to Washington’s policy of normalizing ties with Israel. There is no sign of the new Biden administration taking a more critical position towards Bahrain. Indeed it was the Obama administration in which Biden was vice president that colluded with Britain in the slaughter of the Bahraini revolution back in 2011.

Thus, when Britain and the United States talk about promoting democracy and human rights in places like Hong Kong, Venezuela, Russia, or anywhere else, just remember their bankrupt credibility as proven by Bahrain. Western news media – despite their claims of freedom and independence – also deserve condemnation. Those media have steadfastly ignored the plight of Bahrainis in deference to their government’s geopolitical interests.

A follow-up commentary on the Arab Spring events 10 years ago will look at how the United States and Britain hypocritically and disingenuously moved to intervene in Libya and Syria at the very same time that these powers were suppressing the legitimate pro-democracy movement in Bahrain.

The Trump administration, desperate for some good news, just manufactured its own news by confecting a ‘peace’ deal between Israel and a bunch of pipsqueak Arab monarchies – just in time for November US elections.

The Gulf monarchies – the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain – that signed this agreement are so frightened of neighboring Iran that they would happily have opted for Israeli rule rather than welcome the angry, unforgiving Iranians, who call the Gulf Arabs ‘traitors, cowards and backstabbers,’ a sentiment shared by much of the Arab world.

Few Americans could find these little sheikdoms on a map. But many evangelical voters, who have a comic-book view of the Mideast, will think the Trump administration has achieved a major feat by supposedly bringing peace to the Holy Land. Cynics, among them many Israelis, will likely scoff at such falafel in the sky thinking. Oman is expected to sign the new accord.

Israel remains intent on expanding its borders to gobble up all of what was historic Palestine and its water resources. Five million Palestinians will remain stateless. Israel also has its eye on fertile parts of Syria and Lebanon.

As I suggested in my book on Mideast strategy, ‘American Raj,’ the key beneficiaries of any Arab-Israeli peace deal would be Israel’s bankers, businessmen and arms makers. If a decent peace deal can be made with the Palestinians, the doors of the entire Muslim world (a fifth of humanity) will be opened to Israel’s commerce and finance. This will be a huge bonanza worth orders of magnitude more than the West Bank’s scrubby slopes.

But to do so, Israel’s hard right and religious extremists will have to lessen their demands for Arab land and water – that is, what they term, Greater Israel. Just as difficult and obdurate will be Trump’s evangelical core voters who want to see a mythical Biblical Israel recreated, paving the way for the return of the Messiah and earth’s fiery destruction.

The United Arab Emirates, population just under 10 million, is only 10% Arab. The rest of its people are mainly Indians and Pakistani coolies, giving rise to the old bon mot that Dubai and Abu Dhabi are the world’s best Indian-run cities.

Non-Arab members of the UAE are treated like slaves. They are paid a pittance, poorly fed, and live in squalor. Non-Arabs have no rights. Arab citizens don’t have any rights either, just a better standard of living.

I remember these tiny city states from the early 1970’s when I worked for a leading US firm that smuggled high-end cosmetics and perfumes into India, Pakistan and the USSR via Dubai’s busy port.

Back in the day, Britain’s intelligence agency, MI6, controlled Oman and its royal rulers. Similarly, the CIA today exercises great influence over Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, not to mention Egypt and Morocco. Tiny Qatar maintains a degree of independence in the face of Saudi threats and efforts by the Trump people to crush it.

The big Mideast deal ballyhooed by Trump and Co. is in reality a phony peace between secretly allied Gulf States and Israel. They have been playing footsie for over a decade. It is not primarily about peace but about Iran and arms sales to the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia that they have no idea how to use. Weapons sales are a protection payoff to Washington, which has important bases in Qatar, the UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

What next? Will Trump declare a trans-Pacific alliance between Tonga and the US to ‘contain’ China?

As for peace in the Mideast, recall the biting words of Roman historian Tacitus, ‘where they make a desert they call it peace.’ That is what awaits over five million Palestinian refugees, not a new dawn promised by the Trump administration.

ericmargolis.com

The “Kosher Quartet” of Kushner, Greenblatt, Friedman, and Berkowitz, all Orthodox Jews who support Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the far-right elements of the Likud Party and its allies, have designed a plan that will see Israel’s satellites in the Gulf – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain – as well as Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco ante up billions of dollars for “economic development” of the West Bank that will see a virtual Israeli annexation of the territory by paying Palestinians for their land and infrastructure.

Trump’s “deal of the century” is for a new Palestinian diaspora, one that will see Hebron, Ramallah, Jericho, Nablus, Bethlehem, Qalqiliya, Tulkarm, Jenin and other cities depopulated by Palestinians, who will be offered asylum in the Gulf states and a Saudi-planned $500 billion supercity in northwestern Saudi Arabia, Jordan, southern Israel, and Sinai called “NEOM.” With their “exit wealth” and college degrees, the Palestinians are viewed by MbS and Kushner as optimal residents of NEOM, planned to be 30 times larger than New York City. As for the West Bank, the plan is for it to be repopulated by Jews from Israel proper, illegal Israeli settlements already in the West Bank, and abroad.

The Kosher Quartet’s “deal of the century” would not have been possible, nor would have the “peace conference” in Manama, were it not for the culpability of Israel’s allies in the Gulf, particularly, Kushner’s good friend, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), and United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahayan (MbZ).

Even US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo downplayed the success of the “peace plan” as “un-executable.” He told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations that Kushner’s plan “may be rejected.” Pompeo later walked back his comments while accompanying Kushner to the British state dinner for Trump in London. On the way to London from the Middle East, Kushner and Pompeo stopped off in Montreux, Switzerland to attend the secretive annual conclave of the Bilderberg Group.

Pompeo’s comments came at about the same time Kushner, in a rare interview with the press, said the Palestinians are not capable of governing themselves, which really means that his plan sees continued Israeli subjugation over Palestinians who do not accept the sale of their birthright in exchange for Gulf money. Kushner’s plan is nothing more than what might be expected from the son of one of New Jersey’s and New York’s shadiest real estate tycoons and “slum lords,” Charles Kushner, a federal ex-convict who served a nearly two-year prison term for illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering.

Kushner also said that it was not his role in brokering a peace agreement for the Palestinians to trust him. That may have been the only truthful thing Kushner said in the interview with Axios. The Palestinians have absolutely no reason to trust Kushner after the Trump administration took several steps to marginalize the Palestinian Authority, including the closure of the US consulate general in Jerusalem, the moving of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, cutting off millions of dollars in direct assistance to Palestinians and via the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and Friedman claiming that Israel is “on the side of God.” Trump’s recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over Syria’s Golan Heights did nothing to assuage the concerns of the Palestinians, who saw it as a possible prelude to Israel’s re-annexation of the Gaza Strip, Israel’s very own “Warsaw Ghetto” for Palestinians subject to blockades, sanctions, and Israeli military aggression.

Kushner told Axios that he sees a stark difference between the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian people. In fact, the State of Palestine, which is governed by the Palestinian National Authority, is recognized by 137 members of the United Nations and holds non-member observer status in the UN.

While the stance of the lavishly pro-Israeli Trump administration on Palestinian self-determination is no surprise, those of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain point to Israel’s growing influence in the Gulf as the Israeli-Gulf Arab alliance against Iran becomes more militant. The Saudis and Emiratis are now close intelligence partners of the Israelis, even relying on Israeli surveillance software to track opponents of their regimes at home and abroad. Israeli, American, Saudi, Emirati, and Jordanian military officers regularly meet in joint war rooms to carry out static military operations against Iran. One such war room is said to be in Eilat, Israel and another, across the border, in Aqaba, Jordan. Among the exercises performed is the disabling of Saudi air defenses to allow Israeli aircraft to pass through Saudi airspace in an attack on Iran. UAE military officers have participated in air training exercises with Israeli pilots in Greece and Israel.

Saudi officials directly responsible for the grisly murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a US permanent resident, in the Saudi consulate-general in Istanbul reportedly met secretly with Israeli intelligence officials. Jared Kushner also reportedly expressed no opposition to MbS’s plan to eliminate Khashoggi, a frequent critic of Saudi policies, including its cooperation with Israel against the interests of the Palestinians.

Joining the Saudis and Emiratis in selling out the Palestinians to the Israelis has been Bahrain, a virtual puppet state of Saudi Arabia that also hosts the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet. Bahrain’s Shi’a Muslim majority, long oppressed by the Wahhabi Sunni Al Khalifa monarchy, was brutally suppressed in 2011 with the assistance of Saudi military forces. Manama has reportedly welcomed Israeli government visitors. The Bahraini Nonoo family, of Iraqi Jewish descent, has seen its members appointed to key Bahraini government positions, including ambassador to the United States and to a seat in parliament.

Two Gulf nations opposed to the Saudi-Emirati-Israeli alliance are Qatar and Oman. Qatar has withstood a brutal Saudi and Emirati economic and diplomatic blockade, supported by the Trump administration, Israel, and Egypt. The Saudis and Emiratis subjected Qatar to a massive cyber-attack and fake news campaign. The anti-Qatar campaign was also assisted by veterans of the Israeli and American signals intelligence and cyber-warfare agencies, Unit 8200 and the National Security Agency (NSA), respectively. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was, in part, fired by Trump over Tillerson’s refusal to agree to Jared Kushner’s tough line against Qatar. Kushner’s attitude was influenced by Qatar’s rejection of a request by Kushner’s father to the head of the Qatar Investment Authority for it to financially bail out the Kushners’ failing building at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Qatar’s good relations with Iran, as well as its contacts with the Houthis in Yemen and Hamas in Gaza made it target number one for the Israelis and their friends in the Gulf and in Washington.

Oman also maintains good relations with Iran and its stance resulted in a 2018 highly-publicized trip to Muscat by Netanyahu for a meeting with ailing Sultan Qaboos bin Said. Oman refused Netanyahu’s demand that it change its policy toward Iran. Neither Qatar nor Oman are favorable to the Kushner “peace plan” for the Palestinians.

One can imagine the outrage from the likes of Kushner and other members of the powerful Israeli lobby in the United States if a future Democratic president appointed the following four US Representatives: Palestinian-American Rashida Tlaib, Somali-American Ilhan Omar, Syrian-American Justin Amash, and Lebanese-American Donna Shalala to be in charge of negotiating a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement. The “usual suspects” would cry foul. Where are those cries now with the perfidy now at play with the Manama conference and Trump’s “Kosher Quartet?”

Republicans often criticized the Obama administration for “mistreating” our allies. Many of them seemed to believe that collecting allies was a bit like accumulating Facebook friends: the more the merrier—never mind whether they share Americans’ values. Some of President Donald Trump’s dearest foreign “friends” are authoritarian brutes at home, violating human rights that most Americans claim to hold dear.

The problem is not that Washington makes difficult accommodations with powerful and important nations. It is that U.S. officials look foolish when they ignore the chasm between rhetoric and practice that others so clearly see.

One of the worst cases is Bahrain, the Shia-majority kingdom that hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet in its capital Manama. The monarchy there has long favored the minority Sunnis, establishing a system that some critics have compared to South African apartheid. In 2011, the Arab Spring yielded a vibrant Bahraini democracy movement led by the oppressed majority Shia that embarrassed the autocratic kingdom. The regime had to rely on Saudi troops to brutally crush all opposition. Observed the New York Times: “Bahrain’s royal family has used tanks, riot police officers, sweeping arrests and tight censorship to thwart demands for democracy among the Shiite Muslim majority.”

A supposed dialogue with critics proved to be but a façade, as criticism led to arrest and prison. Some 14 death sentences were handed down for alleged “terrorist” offenses. Scores of opponents were stripped of their citizenship. Some critics were banned from traveling abroad, while others disappeared, later to end up before military courts. No one was safe. McClatchy reported at the time:

Authorities have held secret trials where protesters have been sentenced to death, arrested prominent mainstream opposition politicians, jailed nurses and doctors who treated injured protesters, seized the health care system that had been run primarily by Shiites, fired 1,000 Shiite professionals and canceled their pensions, detained students and teachers who took part in the protests, beat and arrested journalists, and forced the closure of the only opposition newspaper.

The regime brought in Pakistani and Syrian Sunnis to staff its burgeoning security agencies. It also sought to attract Sunni immigrants, fast-tracking their citizenship applications to diminish the Shia population’s edge (70 to 75 percent of total Bahrainis). Manama even launched a campaign to destroy Shia mosques, calling them “illegal buildings.”

At least the Obama administration evidenced some discomfort at the vicious crackdown. Although the State Department still expresses concern from time to time, President Trump has ignored the repression. Indeed, last spring the president, while meeting Bahrain’s ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, said: “Our countries have a wonderful relationship together.” While there had been past tensions, he allowed, “there won’t be strain with this administration.”

The latest assault on human rights by the Bahraini regime is a five-year sentence imposed on Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. In 2012, he was sentenced to three years in jail for encouraging protests. He is currently serving a two-year sentence for criticizing the monarchy’s crimes in a television interview. The latest punishment is for “insulting national institutions” with tweets that reported the torture of prisoners. Rajab also faces additional charges because of the 2016 New York Times op-ed that he wrote while in jail complaining that the regime was the kind of American ally “that punishes its people for thinking, that prevents its citizens from exercising their basic rights.”

Last year the al-Khalifa government targeted the family of human rights activist Sayed al-Wadaei, who had been stripped of his citizenship and forced into exile. Manama arrested his cousin, mother-in-law, and brother-in-law, and in October sentenced all three to prison on dubious charges. Human Rights Watch cited “due process violations and allegations of ill-treatment and of coerced confessions.” The regime had previously threatened his wife, young son, and other relatives with arrest and torture.

Repression has been a constant of Bahraini policy. In the aftermath of the 2011 crackdown, King Hamad created the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry to investigate human rights abuses. BICI reported that hundreds of people have been convicted for peacefully protesting and criticizing the government. It recommended that “all persons charged with offenses involving political expression, not consisting of advocacy of violence, have their convictions reviewed and sentences commuted or, as the case may be, outstanding charges against them dropped.” Alas, far from redressing past crimes, the regime has doubled down, attempting to extirpate dissent.

“Little has changed in the administration of criminal cases in Bahrain,” reported HRW in 2014. In many cases defendants are convicted “of ‘crimes’ based solely on the peaceful expression of political views or the exercise of the rights to freedom of association and peaceful assembly.”

Abuses by security forces continue and remain generally immune from punishment. This situation is “impossible to reconcile with even minimal standards of justice,” noted HRW.

Moreover, torture is government policy. BICI reported that security agencies “followed a systematic practice of physical and psychological mistreatment, which in many cases amounted to torture, with respect to a large number of detainees in their custody.”

Despite regime promises of reform, a 2015 HRW report found that “Bahraini authorities have failed to effectively implement the BICI recommendations for combating torture; that the new offices have failed to fulfill their mandate; and that Bahraini security forces continue to torture detainees.” Women are especially vulnerable: human rights activist Ebtisam al-Saegh was beaten and sexually assaulted after her arrest in 2017.

Large-scale repression has undermined what was once a growing if limited civil society. Facing special scrutiny have been political organizations and labor unions. Noted a 2013 HRW report, “authorities use the law to suppress civil society and restrict freedom of association in three main ways: by arbitrarily rejecting registration applications and intrusively supervising NGOs; taking over and dissolving—more or less at will—organizations whose leaders have criticized government officials or their policies; and severely limiting the ability of groups to fundraise and receive foreign funding.”

The repression continues, year in and out. Last month HRW reported that “Bahrain continued its downward spiral on human rights during 2017 as the government harassed, intimidated, imprisoned, and prosecuted human rights defenders and their relatives on charges that should never have been brought.” HRW’s Sarah Leah Whitson said that “Bahrain’s tolerance for dissent is approaching a vanishing point, erasing whatever progress it made after promising to make reforms following the unrest in 2011.”

Indeed, earlier this year Freedom House rated Bahrain “Not Free,” near the bottom internationally for civil liberties and political rights. “Once a promising model for political reform and democratic transition, Bahrain has become one of the Middle East’s most repressive states,” reported FH, and the government has lately intensified its “drive to outlaw peaceful political opposition.” Unsurprisingly, Bahrain is rated unfree on separate indices for press and internet freedom as well.

Even the State Department cannot deny the obvious. Its latest 47-page human rights report cites “limitations on citizens’ ability to choose their government peacefully, including due to the government’s ability to close arbitrarily or create registration difficulties for organized political societies; restrictions on free expression, assembly, and association; and lack of due process in the legal system, including arrest without warrants or charges and lengthy pretrial detentions—used especially in case against opposition members and political or human rights activists.”

But that’s not all. “Other significant human rights problems included lack of judicial accountability for security officers accused…of committing human rights violations; defendants’ lack of access to attorneys and ability to challenge evidence; prison overcrowding; violations of privacy; and other restrictions on civil liberties, including freedom of press and association.” State also cited social discrimination against Sunnis, “travel bans on political activists,” and revocation of citizenship.

No wonder Nabeel Rajab used his New York Times article to ask then-secretary of state John Kerry: “Is this the kind of ally America wants?” How would Kerry’s successor, Secretary Rex Tillerson, respond? And President Trump?

The world is a messy place, and sometimes tough, unpleasant decisions must be made. But backing repressive regimes is costly: the majority of Bahrainis cannot help but see America as aiding their oppressors. And Washington’s tolerance for brutal dictatorships undermines its criticism of Iran and other authoritarian governments.

At the very least the U.S. should eschew the close embrace and rhetoric of friendship. More fundamentally, Washington should rethink the interventionist policies that force it to rely upon such authoritarian regimes. The Middle East no longer maintains an energy stranglehold. Israel is a regional superpower capable of defending itself, and its emerging alliance with the Gulf States has created a strong balance of power against Iran. America can begin to step back.

In the meantime, Trump should call up his buddy the king and urge the release of Nabeel Rajab. If the president is going to pal around with assorted dictators, he might as well achieve something positive for his trouble. Freeing a human rights hero would be a good start.

theamericanconservative.com

The Washington Post falls back into its 2005 mode of blaming Iran for the capabilities of a local insurgency. This time it is not Iraq where Iran is allegedly providing to insurgents, but Bahrain.

Old and debunked claims are hauled up and propaganda from the U.S. proxy Sunni dictatorship is cited as "evidence". It is a top-right front-page story in the Sunday edition and thereby "important". It is also fake news.

The headline: U.S. increasingly sees Iran’s hand in the arming of Bahraini militants.The core:

The report, a copy of which was shown to The Washington Post, partly explains the growing unease among some Western intelligence officials over tiny Bahrain, a stalwart U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf and home to the Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Six years after the start of a peaceful Shiite protest movement against the country’s Sunni-led government, U.S. and European analysts now see an increasingly grave threat emerging on the margins of the uprising: heavily armed militant cells supplied and funded, officials say, by Iran.

The authors insert caveats:

While Bahraini officials frequently accuse Tehran of inciting violence, the allegations often have been discounted as exaggerations by a monarchy that routinely cites terrorism as a justification for cracking down on Shiite activists.

But after noting that Bahraini authorities notoriously lie the authors regurgitate approvingly the claims of exactly those authorities:

… the country’s investigators said in a confidential technical assessment … a copy of which was shown to The Washington Post …

That is supported, the authors say, by:

… interviews with current and former intelligence officials …

Surly, "current and former intelligence officials" are paragons of truth and veracity and whatever they claim MUST be true.

At issue is the detection of one basement workshop in Bahrain where someone is using "$20,000 lathes and hydraulic presses" to produce shaped charges and also stored a pile of C4 explosives.

A $20,000 lathe is at the lower end of low-quality professional tooling. Hydraulic presses can be made from car jacks. How to make hollow charges and explosive formed penetrators (EFPs) is described in the CIA's Explosives for Sabotage Manual which the U.S. translated and distributed for decades in Afghanistan and elsewhere. C4 explosives of various origins, including from Iran, are available on black weapon markets throughout west-Asia.

Source: CIA Handbook

Nothing of the above points to the conclusion that these are "cells supplied and funded .. by Iran". The only connection to Iran the Bahrani police found and which is noted in the piece is:

One of the six caches “involved C-4 in its original Iranian military packaging,” the report said.

The piece does not note where the C4 in the other five caches came from. A detailed chemical analysis will be able to find the "signatures" of the chemical production facilities. If only one of six explosive caches comes from an Iranian manufacturer the problem Bahrain has on hand with the C4 is hardly of Iranian origin. So why are the manufacturing origins of the other five caches of explosives not mentioned at all? Did those caches come from the U.S. or from Saudi factories?

But the problems with the piece do not end there.

After noting how unreliable Bahrain official claims are, it discussed at length such Bahraini claims.

After describing the cheap equipment used to make shaped charges in Bahrain it goes on to explain how Iran, and only Iran, gives those to insurgencies. It quotes some guy from the Zionist propaganda shop Washington Institute who:

saw echoes in Bahrain of Iran’s practice of supplying tank-crushing EFPs to Iraqi Shiite militias, which used the devices in an effort to create no-go zones around Shiite strongholds.

Iran did not and does not supply EFPs to Iraqi insurgents. The Iraqis made those themselves. That was documented here and elsewhere even ten years ago:

For quite a while this story has been debunked by reports about EFP manufacturing in Iraq. These were substantiated, while the "Iran provides EFPs" meme was never proven by any evidence.

There were pieces in the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and by Reuters. Doubts about the Iran origin of EFPs have also been raised in the New York Times. NBC news had U.S. officials at least partly walking back their claims. The Columbia Journalism Review, Inter Press Service and Newshogger Cernig ran good summary stories including many sources. We also discussed the 'evidence' here.

The WaPo story, though on today's Sunday paper's frontpage, has a (web-)dateline of April 1. That is probably the only reliable claim it carries.

There is no evidence that Iran provides for a Shia insurgency in Shia majority-Sunni ruled Bahrain just as there is no evidence that it supplies Zaidi fighters in Yemen who fight Al-Qaeda and its Saudi sponsors.

But there is by now a steady stream of Saudi and U.S. propaganda that makes such claims. These claims sound awfully similar to the claims made before the war on Iraq of (non-existing) Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. To find such again on page one of the Sunday edition of a major newspaper is more than disturbing.

moonofalabama.org

Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, will pay an official visit to Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates in November. An official announcement yesterday said their tour will “help to strengthen the United Kingdom’s warm bilateral relations with key partners” in the Gulf region.

Relations between Britain’s royals and Bahrain’s repressive ruling family are especially warm – and controversial. News of the prince’s visit comes barely a week after the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights denounced Bahrain for the “harassment and arrests of human rights defenders and political activists”.

Earlier this year, a report by the British parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee accused the government of downgrading human rights issues in its dealings with repressive regimes. It said the government’s failure to classify Bahrain (along with Egypt) as a Human Rights Priority Country “contributes to the perception” that it “has become more hesitant in promoting and defending international human rights openly and robustly”.

The British and Bahraini royal families have regular contact through the annual Royal Windsor Horse Show. In May, the king of Bahrain was seated at the Queen’s right-hand side for an equestrian event at Windsor Castle to celebrate her 90^th birthday (see photo).

The November trip will be Prince Charles’s sixth visit to Bahrain.

Britain also has a special relationship with Oman’s anglophile despot, Sultan Qaboos, who once served in the British army. Qaboos was installed as sultan in 1970, with British help. The coup came after it was decided that Qaboos would serve British interests better than his ageing and paranoid father, Said bin Tamur, who ended his days in luxurious exile at the Dorchester Hotel in London.

Although moves by the British government to de-prioritise human rights have been under way for some time, they appear to be accelerating as a result of the Brexit referendum. The government is looking for ways to compensate for lost trade with the EU and the wealthy but autocratic Gulf states are an obvious target market. The Saudi foreign minister has already hinted that Britain could have a free trade agreement with the six GCC countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

al-bab.com

Photo: BNA

«As the world’s eyes fall on Bahrain during the Grand Prix this weekend, few will realize that the international image the authorities have attempted to project of the country as a progressive reformist state committed to human rights masks a far more sinister truth», said Said Boumedouha, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme. «Four years on from the uprising, repression is widespread and rampant abuses by the security forces continue. Bahrain’s authorities must prove that the promises of reform they have made are more than empty rhetoric».

The opposition against the government spread among the Shia majority – 700 thousand out of one million. 300 thousand Bahrainis are Sunni Muslims. King of Bahrain Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa relies on the support of Sunnis who make up a predominant majority in military, police and security services ranks. Torn by strife between Sunni and Shia Muslims, Bahrain fell prey to the influence of  «Arab Spring». The Shia 2011 uprising was brutally quelled by Persian Gulf monarchies joint force. Back then the West turned a blind eye on bloodshed and protests put down by the Peninsula Shield Force. Since then the situation has been shaky. The calm won't last for long. The government has not done anything to overcome the schism in society. The repressions against Shiites continue. Last year ten Shia mosques were razed to the ground. Bahrain risks to follow the example of Yemen with religious strife turning into a civil war and then growing into a regional armed conflict. Amnesty International calls on international community, especially the Unites States and the European Union, to step in and exert pressure on Bahrain to prevent an explosion. The government cannot stop pursuing the religious minority. 

To large measure Bahrain relies on Saudi Arabia support. Actually the country has become a springboard for Saudi forces fighting Shiites seen as a force backed by Tehran. Yemen is an example. Since the 1970s, Bahrain and the U.S. have maintained a close military partnership. Following 9/11, the Bush Administration elevated Bahrain to «major non-NATO ally» status. The U.S. Fifth Fleet (headquartered in Bahrain) is responsible for the American naval forces throughout the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, Red Sea, and part of the Indian Ocean. Bahrain served as an important base of operations during the 1991 Gulf War, the 2001 war in Afghanistan, and the 2003 war in Iraq. As the U.S. military conducts operations against the «Islamic State» (IS) in Iraq and Syria, the Fifth Fleet continues to play a crucial role in America’s strategic posture in the Middle East. A forward headquarters was established in 2002 at Camp Sayliyah in Doha, Qatar, which in 2009 transitioned to a forward headquarters at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar to serve American strategic interests. 

The naval base at Manama has been greatly expanded recently. The US Navy is planning to expand its Fifth Fleet naval base in Bahrain, with a senior official reiterating the importance of the Gulf island state and dismissing speculation it was looking at potential alternative Gulf sites for the base as a result of the country’s ongoing political unrest. In an interview with Stars and Stripes, the official newspaper of the US armed forces, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations, emphasized the importance of the Navy’s Middle East presence and said Bahrain remains the best option for operating out of the region. «Bahrain is going to suddenly emerge» in the eyes of the public and the Defence Department, Greenert was quoted as saying, telling personnel the base would continue to be its «centerpiece.» But will the US forces remain neutral in case their presence is threatened? 

The Crown Prince of Bahrain, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bahrain, blasted U.S. foreign policy in an interview and warned that its «schizophrenia» will lead the Arab world to ally with Russia. Using unusually hostile language, al-Khalifa said American policy is «transient and reactive», and «America seems to suffer from schizophrenia when it deals with the Arab world. He said the US foreign policy depends on forthcoming election in two years and there is no long-term policy. He expressed doubts that that Arab states could rely on the West. 

Bahrain does not trust Obama and strives to get US Congress backing. The Bahrain’s embassy in Washington uses the true and tries principle «petrodollars make everything possible». Bahrain hired the lobbying firm DLA Piper to «advise, assist and represent the Kingdom of Bahrain in the United States in connection with obtaining support for anti-terrorism efforts to be undertaken by and in the Kingdom of Bahrain.» In reality Bahrain wants to acquire US weapons. The Manama's embassy in Washington is circulating a letter in the House and Senate that highlights the Gulf island kingdom's role in the international coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The letter, which is addressed to Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, also highlights the need for «unity and cohesiveness» amid nuclear talks with Iran that have put the Arab Gulf countries on edge. «I'm very concerned about Iranian penetration into Bahrain; that's their next target», said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz. «There are several things I'm not happy about that [Bahrain's] government has done, but they need to be able to defend their country. There's no doubt that Iranian weapons are coming into Bahrain. We should give them weapons and we should continue to pressure them to respect human rights-both.» Senate Foreign Relations Near East panel Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and shared similar thoughts. «Yes, I'd like the Bahrainis to do some things differently», Risch said. «But how can you have somebody in the coalition and say, 'OK, fight, but we're not going to sell you any weapons?»

Great Britain is the leading Bahrain’s ally in Europe. In the margins of the 10th IISS Manama Dialogue in December, 2014, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond signed a new defence arrangement with His Excellency Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Khalifa, Bahrain’s Foreign Minister and in the presence of HRH Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and first Deputy Prime Minister and UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon. The arrangement will improve onshore facilities at the Bahrain Defence Force (BDF) Mina Salman Port in Bahrain, where the UK has four mine-hunter warships permanently based and from where British Destroyers and Frigates in the Gulf are supported. Under the arrangement, the UK is planning to bolster the existing facilities at the Port, providing the Royal Navy with a forward operating base and a place to plan, store equipment for naval operations and accommodate Royal Navy personnel.

As experience shows, not a single Arab country has ever succeeded in managing internal conflicts between Shiites and Sunnis with the help of outside interference.