The Saudi-backed violence in Bahrain

In the bad old days, before Twitter and YouTube and the internet itself, we were a lot insulated from the brutal details of dictatorships.  News reports left them to our imaginations.
But, now, we get a real feel for how dictatorship is enforced. (ht: Sullivan and Kristof)

Warning:
DO NOT click on play in the following videos, unless you know you can handle the reality of graphic violence. 
I could barely watch the first few seconds of the second video, which is a short one to begin with, before I stopped it and stepped away to clear my head and eyes.


I really mean that warning for the following one:


The US now reaches yet another critical test: should we oppose the Saudis and the Bahraini king, stay silent, or support the people who are protesting in order to gain freedom?

Or, let us suppose that the protesters in Bahrain as us the same question that President Bush asked the rest of the world: "are you with us, or against us?" ....

Meanwhile, in Libya, whose people we in the US and in Western Europe let down in an awful manner, well, Gaddafi is now feeling so strengthened that his son brags that it will all be over in 48 hours, and any no-fly zone will be too late:

"Military operations are over. Within 48 hours everything will be finished. Our forces are almost in Benghazi. Whatever the decision, it will be too late."

What a tragic mess that the US and the West made out of the rebellion against a mad dog dictator :(  It was one awful sin of omission.  As the Telegraph put it:

The imperious silence emanating from the White House as the turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East intensifies is exacting a high price. For the better part of a month, President Obama has shown himself to be a master of gnomic inaction.

How did this guy go from those big speeches in Germany and Cairo, to such a wimp?  "A man or a mouse?," as the old question goes!  The Telegraph adds:

If America is not prepared to support its friends, they will increasingly be forced to look after themselves. For example, Bahrain may not have felt compelled to seek military aid from Saudi Arabia if Washington had been more supportive of its clumsy attempts to introduce democracy. Certainly, the Saudi intervention in support of Bahrain's Sunni ruling family can hardly be said to be in the West's interests, as it runs the risk of further antagonising the kingdom's majority Shia population. If Iran, which regards itself as the Shias' main protector, were to respond on their behalf, the crisis could quickly escalate into open hostility between Iran and Saudi Arabia, thereby closing the Gulf and cutting off the West's vital oil supplies. At that point, the American president would have no alternative but to intervene

If we intervened only at that late a time, then we will end up delivering convincing proof to the entire world that the only American interest in that part of the world is in the millions of barrels of petroleum that lies beneath the sands.

More on Bahrain--the Shia canary in a Sunni coal mine

Last summer, in August, I blogged that Bahrain might be a critical link along the Sunni-Shiite chain and, in particular, when it comes to democracy and treatment of minorities. 

A couple of weeks later, I worried about the growing Shia-Sunni tensions in the region in the map to the right, with Iran in the middle to highlight its status as the leading Shia country, surrounded by Sunni Muslim states.

I didn't think that the unraveling would come from even beyond--from Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria--and, more so, not from the Shia-Sunni tensions.

But, it does not mean that these religious sectarian differences will not show up; they do, as we find out with the recent news from Bahrain.

the king of Bahrain, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, made a rare television appearance in which he offered condolences on the protesters' deaths.

He expressed his condolences for "the deaths of two of our dear sons" in a televised speech and said a committee would investigate the killings.

"We will ask legislators to look into this issue and suggest needed laws to resolve it," he said, adding that peaceful protests were legal.

Police reportedly fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the funeral procession [Mahmood Nasser Al-Yousif]

But angered by the two deaths, al-Wefaq, Bahrain's main Shia Muslim opposition group, announced it was suspending its participation in the parliament.

"This is the first step. We want to see dialogue," Ibrahim Mattar, an al-Wefaq parliamentarian, said. "In the coming days, we are either going to resign from the council or continue."

Al-Wefaq has a strong presence inside the parliament and within the Shia community.
The protesters say their main demand is the resignation of Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, the prime minister, who has governed Bahrain since its independence in 1971.

An uncle of the king, he is seen as a symbol of the wealth of the ruling family.

The protesters say they are also demanding the release of political prisoners, which the government has promised, and the creation of a new constitution.
Tuesday's violence came a day after demonstrators observed a Day of Rage, apparently inspired by the recent uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.

Thousands came out on the streets on Monday to protest, sparking clashes with riot police.
Video from YouTube showing riot police firing on largely peaceful protesters during that demonstration.

Poverty, high unemployment and alleged attempts by the state to grant citizenship to Sunni foreigners to change the demographic balance have intensified discontent among Bahrain's Shias.

Around half of the tiny island kingdom's 1.3 million people are Bahraini, with the rest being foreign workers. The majority of citizens are Shia.

Bahrain: a "canary in the coal mine"

In my late teenage years and later on, it seemed like every other person had plans to get to the "Gulf": to the many countries around the Persian Gulf.  One cousin has now lived practically his entire adult life there, and we joke that he has become a sheikh himself! 

Bahrain was one of those attractors.  It was favored, in particular, over destinations like Saudi Arabia, because of its better climatic conditions thanks to it being a small island, and because of its relatively liberal and relaxed attitudes .  BTW, Bahrain is so liberal that a sex shop opened there, and owned by a woman, and generated a whole lot of controversy!

Thomas Friedman pointed out in articulating his "First Law of Petropolitics" why Bahrain might be on this path that is far away from the rigid social structure in neighboring Saudi Arabia to which it is linked by a fantastic engineering creation that extends over 16 miles--it was dealing with very limited petroleum reserves.  Friedman summarized it succinctly:

Bahrain is the first Arab gulf state to be running out of oil. It also happens to be the first Arab gulf state to hold a free and fair election where women could run and vote. And it also happens to be the first Arab gulf state to sign a free trade agreement with the United States. And it also happens to be the first Arab gulf state to be reforming its labor laws so its people can no longer be dependent on foreign workers.

So, what is the problem that merits the tag of "canary in the coal mine" you ask?  Seventy percent of the Bahraini population is Shia, like the majority in Iran, and very much unlike the overwhelmingly Sunni Saudi Arabia.

Which is why recent reports, like this one, merit our serious attention:

Bahrain's top Shiite politician said a crackdown on Shiite protesters by Sunni rulers has destroyed a decade of stable sectarian relations as the tiny Gulf state heads into parliamentary elections scheduled for October.

The wave of detentions — at least 160, according to one lawyer — has spilled over into near daily clashes between the majority Shiites and Sunni-led security forces and fueled concerns of deeper unrest and heavy-handed tactics in the home of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet.

Any serious breakdown in Bahrain has possible wider repercussions. The country's two groups mirror the regional tug-of-war between Shiite giant Iran and the mostly Sunni Gulf nations that fear Tehran's efforts to expand its influence.

Given Bahrain's location--right in the Persian Gulf and near the 30-mile wide Strait of Hormuz, one can easily see why developments in this island country can reveal a lot about the geopolitical tensions there.