From The Global Mail:

It's all happening in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, home to most of the Kingdom's Shia minority, and 90 per cent of its oil. Seven people have been shot dead by Saudi security forces since October 2011, two in the past month alone. The Saudi Interior Ministry says these deaths resulted from gun battles between protesters and police. But in all amateur videos that show protesters being shot, there is no evidence that protesters were shooting back.

There have been remarkable scenes of rebellion. One photograph, taken on February 10 this year, shows a young man hurling an effigy of Crown Prince Nayef at a row of armoured anti-riot tanks. It's an extraordinary provocation. Prince Nayef is not only the head of the Interior Ministry - he's also the heir to the throne.

But it's not just a few people defying the Prince. On February 13, at a funeral for the most recent 'martyr', 21-year-old Zuhair al Said, tens of thousands of people marched through the streets, chanting No Sunna, No Shia, but Islamic unity! We're not afraid, down with Nayef! You're the terrorist, you're the criminal, you're the butcher, ya Nayef!

We will never rest, country of oppressors! Son of Saud [royal family], hear the voice! We will never give up 'til death!

The article is excellent, and I recommend that people read it in its entirety. Protests intensified after Saudi Arabia sent troops into nearby Bahrain last spring to participate in the ongoing suppression of the democracy movement. There is speculation that the Saudi royal family has not acted even more aggressively because of fears that the populace might interrupt the flow of oil from the region.

Hat tip to the Angry Arab.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Gulf States

Day by day, the US/Israeli/Saudi directed counterrevolution intensifies the violence in North Africa and the Middle East. In Libya, NATO military operations obstensibly launched to prevent a mass slaughter of civilians is now being conducted for the express purpose overthrowing the Gaddafi regime. Predictably, an intervention originally described as one of limited duration has become open-ended, with British military advisors already on the ground. Libya therefore constitutes one form of the colonial manipulation of the democracy movements that have erupted across the Middle East, the incorporation of legitimate demands for social transformation within a broader context of increasing imperial control over the region. Given what has transpired in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt, the mission has an urgency that it would otherwise lack, the necessity of containing the liberatory social forces within those countries. Of course, the immediate victims are the people of Libya, caught between a violent, kleptocratic dictator and a rebel movement dependent upon NATO and religious extremists.

If they are not already concerned, the people of Egypt and Tunisia should be alarmed at what is happening nearby. Because of the weakness of the rebellion, the inability of its participants to remove Gaddafi without outside assistance, the door was opened for countries like France, Italy and the US to attempt to reassert a more overt imperial role. Hence, we should not dismiss the possibility that, if social reforms fail in Egypt and Tunisia, resulting in violent conflict, the US, Europe, and, more covertly, Saudi Arabia and Israel, will intervene to render them ungovernable. Such an outcome, analoguous to what transpired in Lebanon in the 1980s and, in a much more extreme case, Algeria in the 1990s, is a more acceptable outcome than the emergence of stable governments capable of charting an independent course. Indeed, it appears that the Saudis are already providing substantial funding to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and there are rumors that the violence between Copts and Muslims is being instigated by outside forces, such as, again, the Saudis. Meanwhile, Obama has publicly announced a carrot for Egypt, a billion dollars in loan guarantees and a billion dollars of debt relief, subject to Egypt's meeting its commitments, a euphemism for continued participation in the effort to crush Palestinian resistance in the occupied territories.

For the occupied territories remain the most vexing problem for the counterrevolutionaries. Despite the efforts of Fatah and Hamas, a Palestinian mass movement has stepped onto the stage in the most spectacular fashion, centered around, horror of horrors, the right of return for people exiled to refugee camps for decades. On Sunday, May 15th, the IDF found itself confronted by thousands of people, insistence upon entering Israel and the Golan Heights to return to the locations where they had once resided. Consistent with past practice when facing large numbers of Palestinians, it fired large ammunition, and, in Gaza, even artilliery shells. 15 died, with many more wounded. As with much lesser episodes of IDF violence, such as, for example, force directed against protests seeking to stop construction of the apartheid wall in the West Bank, there was no condemnation, and, in the US, there was nearly universal political support for Israel's actions. Protests are again planned for this weekend, and the IDF is naturally prepared to respond with force. The protests are an inevitable manifestation of something far more serious, the imposition of social control and surveillance measures throughout the occupied territories by Israel that make it impossible for any peace settlement, other than the creation of a new unitary state throughout all of Palestine, to be implemented. Accordingly, the IDF violence in response to the May 15th protests is a foreshadowing of much greater violence to come, as the segregated society of Palestine, both within and without the occupied territories, can only be perpetuated through the increased application of it.

As a consequence, Syria presents a counterrevolutionary dilemma. Certainly, the US, the Saudis and the Israelis would love to be rid of Assad, particularly because of the relationships that Syria has preserved with Hizbollah and Iran. But there is a serious problem. Assad has maintained control over the Syrian populace when it comes to challenging Israel over its retention of the Golan Heights and its treatment of the Palestinians. On May 15th, Assad either lacked the ability of use force to prevent protesters from attempting to enter the Golan, or had no inclination to do so because of criticism over his repressive measures to retain power. One need only look to Egypt to recognize what the US, the Israelis and the Saudis fear if Assad is removed, a newly assertive populace insistent upon ending collaboration with Israel. With the fall of Mubarak, the situation is so acute that the military is manipulating sentiment against Israel in order to preserve its socioeconomic privileges. A public expression of support for Israel is an act of political suicide, while harsh criticism is received enthusiastically. Thus, there will be no NATO airstrikes upon Syrian targets and the deployment of military advisors to assist the movement. The counterrevolutionary expectation is probably that Assad survives in a much weakened position, but even that is problematic, because Assad would find it much more difficult to impose restrictions upon political activity, as current events demonstrate.

Bahrain is a tragedy, one that will haunt the US much as the treatment of the Palestinians by Israel does. In Bahrain, the US and the Saudis, as discussed here previously, responded to the democracy movement by sectarianizing it, characterizing it as an Iranian inspired Shia scheme to destroy the monarchy. With US and Saudi acquiescene, the Sunni royal family has unleased a sadistic repression, rounding up Shia so that they can be tortured and raped, firing them from their jobs and bulldozing mosques. As stated here previously:

If Salih in Yemen and al-Khalida in Bahrain succeed in suppressing public protest, they will then proceed to impose even more severe authoritarian measures of social control, with the assistance of private contractors recommended by the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia. As with the current violence, the US will issue public denunciations without adopting any measures to induce Salih and al-Khalida to ameliorate their repressive measures, indeed, as noted, it will instead provide covert aid to intensify them, hidden from public view through the black box of war on terror programs. The poor populace of both of these countries are going to soon find themselves subject to the sort of technological surveillance and violence inflicted upon people in the occupied territories and Afghanistan. The need to economically exploit these people for the benefit of the elites will be the only contraint upon it.

Indeed, the suppression of the Shia has been accompanied by a public relations campaign to assure everyone that all is well, so that people from countries in the developed world will feel comfortable enough to return and enjoy Bahrain as a tourist destination.

The counterrevolutionaires face an inescapable contradiction in Bahrain. In order for Bahrain to be rendered sufficiently stable in order to continue to play a valuable role in the perpetuation of US, Israeli and Saudi hegemony, it must modernize sufficiently to be incorporated into a global neoliberal axis that is hostile to feudalism and sectarian strife. Bahraini modernization therefore requires the creation of a Shia middle and upper middle class that associates their status with the policies of regime. But the Sunni elite cannot retain control of Bahrain without drawing sharp distinctions between Sunni and Shia so as to justify harsh measures against the Shia. In this, Bahrain has disturbing implications for the Saudis themselves. For the US, the problem is a different one. US troops still remain in Iraq, a country with a Shia majority. Opposition to the occupation remains strong, with recent public protests against it. The government does not feel secure enough to enter into an agreement to provide a legal authorization for US troops to continue to be stationed within the country. If they were under any doubt, events in Bahrain reveal what the US really thinks about the social and political empowerment of the Shia. As elsewhere, the counterrevolution is dependent upon the use of military force and repressive measures of social control to prevail, administered to the degree necessary.

Labels: "War on Terror", American Empire, Bahrain, Egypt, Gulf States, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia

Earlier today, President Obama delivered a speech concerning US objectives in the Middle East and North Africa. Overall, As'ad Abukhalil probably has it right: It is not that it brought nothing new: It was not even novel or original rhetorically. I don't see any reason why he delivered it.

The tiresome centerpiece of this speech was this gem about Palestine:

So while the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear: a viable Palestine, and a secure Israel. The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.

What one hand giveth, the other hand taken away, as the purpose of any land swaps is, of course, to allow Israel to retain settlements illegally constructed in the occupied territories. Furthermore, Obama is well aware that there is a tremendous power imbalance between Israel and the Palestinians, as most recently evidenced in the Palestine Papers, so the notion that these swaps would result from a mutual agreement is merely an effort to legitimize a coercive process.

Zlyad Clot, one of the people responsible for their release, put it succinctly:

The peace negotiations were a deceptive farce whereby biased terms were unilaterally imposed by Israel and systematically endorsed by the US and EU. Far from enabling a negotiated and fair end to the conflict, the pursuit of the Oslo process deepened Israeli segregationist policies and justified the tightening of the security control imposed on the Palestinian population, as well as its geographical fragmentation. Far from preserving the land on which to build a state, it has tolerated the intensification of the colonisation of the Palestinian territory. Far from maintaining a national cohesion, the process I participated in, albeit briefly, was instrumental in creating and aggravating divisions among Palestinians. In its most recent developments, it became a cruel enterprise from which the Palestinians of Gaza have suffered the most. Last but not least, these negotiations excluded for the most part the great majority of the Palestinian people: the seven million Palestinian refugees. My experience over those 11 months in Ramallah confirmed that the PLO, given its structure, was not in a position to represent all Palestinian rights and interests.

Today, Obama announced that this farce will continue. But there is something else embedded in his speech that deserves comment as well. Obama rhetorically aligns himself with the liberatory aspirations of the protest movements that have proliferated throughout North Afica and the Middle East, while retaining a close alliance with monarchies in the Persian Gulf, most importantly, the House of Saud. For those of you with long memories, it should sound familiar. Back in the late 1970s, President Carter, along with his Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, and his United Nations Ambassador, Andrew Young, emphasized the importance of human rights as an objective of US foreign policy, while announcing that the Gulf states now fell underneath a protective US military umbrella.

Needless to say, this is a policy that has become increasingly threadbare, with events in Palestine and Bahrain exposing the cynical calculation behind it. Throwing money at the problem in an effort to corral the fractuous revolutionary movements within safe, neoliberal boundaries, is one patchwork solution, with Obama promising US assistance to the governments of Tunisia and Egypt, but this is consistent with the paradoxical naivete that so characterized Carter's presidency, as I noted back in 2007:

Carter, as later, with Clinton, consciously eschewed the trappings of the imperial presidency, and emphasized a religious inspiration for his life in politics quite different than the fundamentalist kind repeatedly described by Bush. He, with a charming naivete, has sought to live a life of humble Christian service, and, while President, believed that the public would respond to his example, and his attempts to educate them. It was a simpleminded idealism that might have been very effective in a communitarian society, but it was destined to fail in the crucible of the final stages of the Cold War, with the contours of the coming neoliberal order, designed to drain away the energy of the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, already visible.

Accordingly, it was now the primary function of leaders to depoliticize the social life of their countries, not encourage it, and sadly, a lot of people were ready to acquiesce. Carter, unlike his successors, lacked a clear understanding of his role, and, hence, swung between social and economic policies that disempowered people, and attempts to motivate people through education, appeals to rationality and community involvement (and, if necessary, sacrifice, as with his national energy policy).

In other words, Carter actually believed that Americans, and, indeed, people everywhere, could be persuaded to endorse an increasingly deregulated, privatized world under the benign oversight of the US, and, curiously enough, he still seems to believe it today.

There is very little in this analysis that cannot be equally applied to Obama. Unfortunately, just as the neoconservatives have consistently warned, the consequences of such a paradoxical fusion of realpolitik and idealism are combustible, as Carter discovered with the revolutions in Iran and Nicaragua.

And, as I observed in 2007, the US is now confronting an even more politically charged situation than Carter did:

Now that it has become evident, after Iraq, that the world cannot be subjected to the demands of transnationals and finance capital through force, Carterism suggests a rosier outcome through dialogue, multilateralism and economic coercion. If adopted, it will fail again, even more so than in the 1970s, because it retains that enduring American perspective that it is our mission to modernize the world in our image, despite increasing opposition to such an endeavor.

Nothing reveals the poverty of US policy in North Africa and the Middle East more than the fact that, faced with one of the most important political uprisings in human history, the US can only respond by throwing more gasoline onto the fire.

Labels: American Empire, Barack Obama, Egypt, Gulf States, Israel, Neoliberalism, Palestine, Tunisia

UPDATE 4: Sarkozy and Erdogan are still going at it:

Nicolas Sarkozy has belittled Nato's role in the military operations against Muammar Gaddafi, re-igniting the row over who replaces the Americans in charge of the campaign in Libya.

Senior Nato officials said the alliance would decide within days whether to take over the bombing campaign against Gaddafi's forces and David Cameron announced that Nato would "shortly be providing the command and control and the machinery" for the attacks on ground targets in Libya.

The Nato decision is expected by Monday, before foreign ministers meet in London on Tuesday to discuss Libya. Senior officials were confident that the alliance would agree to assume command of all three elements of the campaign against Gaddafi – the air assaults, as well as the no-fly zone and arms embargo already under Nato command.

Turkey and France have been embroiled in a bitter row all week, with Ankara demanding that the Nato alliance, of which it is the member with the second biggest army after the US, takes over and Sarkozy opposed.

Sarkocy wants NATO to provide the force, while leaving the decisions as to the deployment of it to the eleven countries taking part in operations, thus excluding Turkey. Is this an indication that ground troops may soon be necessary? What are the consequences for the future of NATO if Sarkozy prevails? Germany is already on the sidelines, and Turkey may soon find itself there.

UPDATE 3: Libyan airstrikes have brought the economic ambitions of competitors, such as Turkey's Recip Tayyip Erdogan and France's Nicholas Sarkozy to the surface:

The clash between Turkey and France over Libya is underpinned by acute frictions between Erdogan and Sarkozy, both impetuous and mercurial leaders who revel in the limelight, by fundamental disputes over Ankara's EU ambitions, and by economic interests in north Africa.

The confrontation is shaping up to be decisive in determining the outcome of the bitter infighting over who should inherit command of the Libyan air campaign from the Americans and could come to a head at a major conference in London next week of the parties involved.

Using incendiary language directed at France in a speech in Istanbul, Erdogan said: I wish that those who only see oil, gold mines and underground treasures when they look in [Libya's] direction, would see the region through glasses of conscience from now on.

President Gül reinforced the Turkish view that France and others were being driven primarily by economic interests. The aim [of the air campaign] is not the liberation of the Libyan people, he said. There are hidden agendas and different interests.

France is, of course, adamantly oppposed to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.

UPDATE 2: Oh, by the way, could someone just tell Dennis the Menace to shut up and go away? He seems to have forgotten that he further embarasses himself every time he purports to represent an ethical liberal position in public. He'll stick with his assertion that the President should be impeached over bombing Libya until . . well, you know, until the President takes him for a ride on Air Force One again. And, then, there are sell outs like Juan Cole and David Corn.

Cole has always been phony. Years ago, in 2006, I posted a comment on his blog in response to his post about his sadness over the fact that the son of the Israeli novelist David Grossman had been killed during the Israeli ground invasion of southern Lebanon, emphasizing Grossman's opposition to it. I responded with a comment to the effect that Grossman did not oppose the Israeli attacks upon Lebanon until he was afraid that his son was going to be ordered to participate in the pending invasion. I also observed that, according to press reports, Grossman expressed no remorse over the loss of Lebanese lives as a result of the Israeli air strikes and ground assault. Cole deleted it, of course, and I thereafter stopped paying attention to anything he had to say.

UPDATE 1: A provocative commentary by Vijay Prashad:

Such options are no longer central, or even on the table. Qaddafi’s rule might fall in a week or a month. In the interim, he is a caged animal, and his loyalists will not dissolve easily. In the short term, he may conduct some kind of spectacular attack on a tanker in the Mediterranean, or else, as he himself warned, inside Europe. This is precisely the kind of pretext that the warmongers seek. The Gulf of Sidra will stand in for the Gulf of Tonkin. Ships of war will dock at Benghazi, and the ground troops will slide along the road that was once the graveyard of Field Marshall Montgomery and Rommel (their half tracks and tanks still litter the road outside Tobruk). Such an assault, which might be inevitable, will revive the debacle in Iraq that lasted from 2003 to 2007, with loyalists now underground in a brutal insurgency against the foreign troops and the people of the east, a defense of their realm and a sectarian conflict at the same time. If this were the scenario, then, as Michael Walzer put it, it would extend, not stop, the bloodshed.

The forces of counter-revolution line up with the West. The Gulf Cooperation Council hastened to pledge its unequivocal support. The United Arab Emirates is sending twenty-four aircraft and Qatar will send as many as six. They will also help fund the between $1-2 billion/month cost of the enforcing the no-fly zone. Saudi Arabia’s troops remain in Bahrain. Their air force is geared up, and it too might fly alongside the French over Libyan skies. No Tunisian and Egyptian planes are on the offer. It is a telling sign that only the counter-revolutionary regimes are excited at the prospect of this battle. They know that it is precisely the best opportunity to stop the tide of the Arab Revolt of 2011.

Meanwhile, Germany is staying out of it as arguments over the mission erupt within NATO. And, not surprisingly, Steven Erlanger and Judy Dempsey of The New York Times are hysterical over this continuing newfound German assertion of independence from the US and France.

INITIAL POST: No doubt you've noticed that I haven't posted anything about the US, French and British airstrikes against Gaddafi's forces in Libya. There is a good reason for it. I don't understand it, so maybe some of you out there can help.

I've heard a number of explanations as to the objectives of the participants, but I've yet to be fully convinced of any of them. Let's go through them. First, there is the claim that the US, France and the British want to assist the rebels in overthrowing Gaddafi so as to increase their influence in the country, a country with the largest known oil reserves in Africa, with much of it being easily refineable, high quality crude. There is a superficial logic to this, except that the US and Europe had a good working relationship with Gaddafi, and Gaddafi was playing by the rules of the game by kleptocratically investing his oil profits in Europe, so much so that he counted former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and current Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi among his friends. He also provided assistance to Berlusconi in regard to preventing African immigrants from crossing the Mediterranean through Libya. As for the US, he was a staunch supporter of the so-called war on terror.

Perhaps, the US, the French and the British believe that they can cut a better deal on the sharing of profits from future oil exploration and sales than they had with Gaddafi. Much of the oil is supposedly in the eastern regions of Libya under rebel control, and, by this line of reasoning, a line in favor among some on the British left, they would be satisfied with a de facto partition of Libya that resulted in the rebels taking control of much of the country's oil reserves. Possibly. But there are some obvious problems with this, most importantly the fact that the rebels remain more unpredictable in their future dealings with the US and Europe than Gaddafi would have been. So, there is no certainty that the rebels would supply oil on terms more favorable than Gaddafi. Furthermore, there is also no certainty as to how the rebels would put their oil profits to use. There is still a possibility that they would put them to the sort of mischievous use for which Gaddafi and the Iranians have been known. One wonders if the US and Europe expect the rebels to conduct themselves in a manner similar to the mafiosos of Kosovo, with whom they have a good relationship.

Second, there is the belief that the Libyan airstrikes are a sort of camouflage, an intentional effort to distract attention from the US/Saudi efforts to suppress democratic movements in Yemen and Bahrain. Here, again, there is a superficial logic, but it assumes that there is a necessity for the effort, a necessity that I fail to perceive. In the US, there is no significant outcry about the violence inflicted upon protesters in Yemen and Bahrain, indeed, few Americans are even aware of it. To the extent that they are aware, they have, at least in regard to Bahrain, accepted the new propaganda line that the protesters must be suppressed to contain Iran. Apparently, even the Europeans have accepted it, with a European Union foreign policy advisor, Robert Cooper, recycling US fears of the Iranians by expressing alarm over the prospect of a Shia government there. As for the crackdown itself, he concluded accidents happen. His boss, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, is impressed by the offer of talks by the Crown Prince. No one has been willing to touch the most taboo subject of all, the question as to whether the Iranian social model, as seriously flawed as it is, would constitute a significant improvement in the lives of everyone in Bahrain with the exception of the wealthy elite that runs the country. In any event, there is no indication that a Libyan distraction is required.

Third, there is the possibility of another, potentially more compelling distraction. Both Europe and the US are imposing harsh austerity programs after having channeled trillions of dollars of through transnational finacial institutions to preserve them and the investments of the people who purchased their financial instruments. Clearly unable to resist the cuts of a Republican House of Representatives, President Obama shows that he can stand up to that evil African Gaddafi. Similarly, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, is implementing a harsh austerity program that will inflict the most punishment upon the poorest people in society. Reminscent of Thatcher'as response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, he has also been the most strident advocate for military action. Meanwhile, the last member of the intervention triumvirate, the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, finds himself extremely unpopular, so he may believe that the airstrikes will improve his domestic political prospects. French pilots flew the first missions over Libya. It is, however, a doubled edged sword. In addition to the possibility that the intervention will fail, people are beginning to notice, at least in the US, that the military operation is substantially eroding the proposed savings from domestic budget cuts proposed by Republicans, placing the credibility of the austerity effort at risk. For now, though, it is merely an indication that the accumulation of capital through the military industrial complex still works as it has done since the beginning of World War II. After all, governments have to purchase those weapons somewhere.

Labels: American Empire, David Grossman, Europe, France, Germany, Gulf States, Libya, NATO, Neoliberalism, Sub-Proletarianization of America, Sub-Proletarianization of Europe, United Kingdom

Good news in Yemen:

Defense Ministry Mohammad Nasser Aliis just gave a brief statement saying the army would defend Saleh against any coup against democracy.

There have been dozens of major defections today, including the most powerful military officer, who controls 60 percent of the army.

France's foreign ministry has said that Saleh's departure is is unavoidable, according to Al Jazeera. Washington is still sticking with its ally.

Meanwhile, in Bahrain, Secretary of State Clinton announces US support for the Saudi troops that have entered the country:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton affirmed here Saturday the US commitment to protect the security of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, accusing Iran of being a factor of instability in the region.

Iran pursues a private agenda to destabilize neighboring countries and undermine peace and stability in the Gulf region, Clinton said.

She made the remarks in a press conference at the Elysee Palace after a summit of world leaders on the international military action against the regime of Libyan leader Col Muammar Qaddafi.

It’s a priority for the US administration to work with partners in the Gulf region against the concern over the behavior of Iran, she said.

Commenting on the deployment of troops from the Peninsula Shield Force in the Kingdom of Bahrain in the wake of violent protests, Clinton said it was a sovereign right for Bahrain to seek help from GCC member states under the joint defense treaty they had signed.

Has no one told Clinton that she sounds eerily like the Soviet apparatchiks who justified the 1968 invasion of Czechoslavakia on the ground that the people there needed to be protected against a bourgeois counterrevolution? I am starting to worry that, while the Iranian nuclear research program has not ignited a conflict between the US and Iran, turmoil in Bahrain just might.

And, right on cue, Ethan Bronner of The New York Times writes an article empathizing with the plight of the Sunni elite:

When Bahrain’s pro-democracy movement began its demonstrations in Pearl Square last month, Atif Abdulmalik was supportive. An American-educated investment banker and a member of the Sunni Muslim elite, he favored a constitutional monarchy and increasing opportunities and support for the poorer Shiite majority.Atif Abdulmalik, an investment banker, was initially supportive of the protests, but then feared they would harm the economy.

But in the past week or two, the nature of the protest shifted — and so did any hope that demands for change would cross sectarian lines and unite Bahrainis in a cohesive democracy movement. The mainly Shiite demonstrators moved beyond Pearl Square, taking over areas leading to the financial and diplomatic districts of the capital. They closed off streets with makeshift roadblocks and shouted slogans calling for the death of the royal family.

Twenty-five percent of Bahrain’s G.D.P. comes from banks, Mr. Abdulmalik said as he sat in the soft Persian Gulf sunshine. I sympathize with many of the demands of the demonstrators. But no country would allow the takeover of its financial district. The economic future of the country was at stake. What happened this week, as sad as it is, is good.

I'm shocked, shocked to find that the Times considers the perspective of an American educated investment banker critical to understanding events in Bahrain. After all, it is physically located in Manhattan. Here we have an illustration of what As'ad Abukhalil stated in relation to Egypt, that the movement would, over time, become more and more class conscious with the passage of time.

While the US and Saudi Arabia act to polarize the political struggle along sectarian lines so as to make the Iranians the fall guy, the situation on the ground is one of increasing class conflict, with the the predominately Shia poor focusing their anger on the obscene wealth and power of the al-Khalida family. Clearly, there is a synergy between the sectarianism of the US and the Gulf States, and the emerging class consciousness on the streets. It is a sign of the desperation of the US and Saudi Arabia that they have no choice but to adopt a strategy for containing the protests that has the alarming consequence of bringing the class struggle to the fore.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Bahrain, Gulf States, Hillary Clinton, New York Times, Shia

Yemen:

At least 35 people have been shot dead and hundreds wounded in Sana'a after soldiers and plain-clothed government loyalists opened fired on protesters trying to march through the Yemeni capital.

The death toll, which is expected to rise, is the highest seen in more than a month of violence in Yemen, with protesters demanding that President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down.

The protest on Friday had started peacefully. Tens of thousands filled a mile-long stretch of road by Sana'a University for a prayer ceremony mourning the loss of seven protesters killed in similar violence last weekend.

As the prayers came to an end, however, the sight of black smoke from a burning car caught the attention of protesters, who began surging towards it.

Witnesses say the first shots were fired by security forces trying to disperse the protesters and they were joined by plain-clothed men who fired on the demonstrators with Kalashnikovs from the roofs of nearby houses.

Bahrain:

On Friday, the family of Ahmed Farhan, 30, who was killed on Tuesday by security forces in Sitra, an island south of the capital, received the body of their son, with its shotgun pellet wounds to the back and gaping hole in the skull. The family had been trying to bring him home to this activist Shiite village and bury him here, but permission was withheld.

In Bahrain, the Arab spring turned to winter in less than a week. Martial law was declared on Tuesday. It is now illegal to hold rallies. Tanks remain outside the central hospital and Saudi troops are here as back-up. Still, on Friday the Farhan family buried their son and, despite the ban on protests and gatherings, some 5,000 people helped them do it in their home village of Sitra. The village, once an island, is now linked to the mainland by landfill and causeway. It turned into a sea of raised fists and tearful wailing, piety and political indignation, the core of what has been driving the Bahraini protests since mid-February.

The Farhan family is poor, like many in this village, and like many of the 70 percent of the country that is Shiite. Ahmed Farhan, who never married, lived with his family in a ramshackle structure around a courtyard, having lost his job as a fisherman some years ago after harbor construction made fishing impossible. He was taking part in a protest demonstration when he was killed.

If I may be permitted one criticism of the revolutionary movement in the Arab world, as someone comfortably esconsced in California, it is this: the participants have been naive about the implacable US opposition to their liberation. They have believed that the imperial power of the US can be neutralized through massive, non-violent mobilizations. Sadly, they are learning a hard lesson, one already understood by the Iraqis, Palestinians and the people of Afghanistan. The US, and its most stalwart allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, will utilize whatever level of violence that they consider necessary to suppress a perceived threat. In this instance, they consider the revolutionary movements in North Africa and the Middle East as an existential one to their continued hegemonic control, and the US and Saudi Arabia have responded accordingly.

If Salih in Yemen and al-Khalida in Bahrain succeed in suppressing public protest, they will then proceed to impose even more severe authoritarian measures of social control, with the assistance of private contractors recommended by the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia. As with the current violence, the US will issue public denunciations without adopting any measures to induce Salih and al-Khalida to ameliorate their repressive measures, indeed, as noted, it will instead provide covert aid to intensify them, hidden from public view through the black box of war on terror programs. The poor populace of both of these countries are going to soon find themselves subject to the sort of technological surveillance and violence inflicted upon people in the occupied territories and Afghanistan. The need to economically exploit these people for the benefit of the elites will be the only contraint upon it.

My guess is that the people of these countries will adapt, and develop new ways to resist based upon the need to confront the US and the Saudis, as well as their kleptocratic rulers. They may initially limit themselves to non-violent practices, but they will be prepared to respond to violence with violence, and they will direct any such violence towards targets designed to inflict the greatest possible hardship upon their enemies. Indeed, we should not dismiss the possibility that the future resistance will, from the inception, embrace violence as the means for their liberation. While it is far too soon to say that the revolutionary movements of 2010 have been effectively suppressed, it is likely that, if they are, they will reemerge in a much more violent manifestation with severe global consequences.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Bahrain, Gulf States, Neoliberalism, Political Violence

UPDATE 1: Saudi troops have entered Bahrain:

Troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates crossed into Bahrain on Monday under the aegis of the Gulf Cooperation Council to help quell unrest there, a move Bahraini opposition groups denounced in a statement as an occupation.

Witnesses said a convoy of 150 armored troop carriers and about 50 other lightly armed vehicles crossed the bridge linking Saudi Arabia to the tiny island kingdom, and a Saudi security official told The Associate Press that the troops were there to protect critical buildings and installations like oil facilities. However, witnesses later said that the convoy seemed to be heading for Riffa, a Sunni area that is home to the royal family and a military hospital that is closed to the public, Reuters reported.

The opposition statement said it considered the arrival of any soldier or military vehicle an overt occupation of the kingdom of Bahrain and a conspiracy against the unarmed people of Bahrain.

Rather oddly, the Saudis have justified this action by reference to a request by the Crown Prince of Bahrain for assistance from the Gulf Cooperation Council, much as the Russians maintained that it invaded Czechoslavakia in 1968 in response to a Czech governmental request for assistance from the Warsaw Pact. Meanwhile, the US is definitely concerned.

INITIAL POST: From the Guardian:

Saudi forces are preparing to intervene in neighbouring Bahrain, after a day of clashes between police and protesters who mounted the most serious challenge to the island's royal family since demonstrations began a month ago.

The Crown Prince of Bahrain is expected to formally invite security forces from Saudi Arabia into his country today, as part of a request for support from other members of the six-member Gulf Co-operation Council.

Thousands of demonstrators on Sunday cut off Bahrain's financial centre and drove back police trying to eject them from the capital's central square, while protesters also clashed with government supporters on the campus of the main university.

Amid the revolt Bahrain also faces a potential sectarian conflict between the ruling minority of Sunnis Muslims and a majority of Shia Muslims, around 70% of the kingdom's 525,000 residents.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised, as the extension of the protests to the financial district crossed a red line, as reported by Ethan Bronner of The New York Times, oddly enough, from Cairo:

Thousands of antigovernment protesters in Bahrain blocked access to the financial district in Manama, the capital, on Sunday, preventing workers from getting to their offices and pushing back police officers who tried to disperse them.

It was the most serious challenge to the royal family that rules Bahrain since protests began last month.

Witnesses said the police used tear gas and fired on the protesters with rubber bullets.

This was a very, very big day, Mohammed al-Maskati, president of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, said by telephone from Pearl Square, the epicenter for protests in central Manama. Now the protesters control these streets. There are walls of rubble keeping out the police and armed groups. People say they will not sleep tonight.

There were also clashes at the campus of the main university, where protesters contended that the security forces were protecting armed vigilantes accused of fomenting tensions between the 70 percent of the population that is Shiite Muslim and the Sunni ruling family and elite.

The seriousness of a Saudi intervention cannot be exaggerated. One gets the impression that US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates green lighted the Crown Prince's decision during his trip to Bahrain on Friday. Apparently, the prospect of social movements in opposition to the monarchy in places like Bahrain partially explains why Saudi Arabia has the third highest level of defense spending per capita, with only Oman and Qatar ahead of it. Or, to put it more bluntly, the suppression of the Shia remains an essential feature of the policies of the US and its Gulf State allies.

Labels: American Empire, Bahrain, Gulf States, Neoliberalism

A report on the ongoing protests in Bahrain:

As security forces and pro-government vigilantes beat back protesters here on Friday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived on an unannounced visit to offer American support to the royal family and prod the king and crown prince toward talks with protesters demanding more democracy.

His visit took place against a backdrop of large and continuing protests across numerous Arab capitals on Friday, with neither repression nor government concessions succeeding in stemming the growing tide of anger and demands for change.

The protests were for the most part peaceful, although there were scattered reports of injuries from tear gas and other attacks by government security forces seeking to prevent the demonstrations.

Here in this tiny Persian gulf kingdom, security forces firing rubber bullets and pro-government Sunni vigilantes wielding sticks and swords beat back tens of thousands of predominantly Shiite protesters as they neared the royal palace.

Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, a massive deployment of security forces suppressed protests there:

The calm in the Saudi capital may have been achieved partly by an incident on Thursday in the eastern city of al-Qatif, where police shot and wounded at least two protesters. Unconfirmed reports described trouble there again.

Protesters rallied in Hofuf, close to the eastern Ghawar oil field and major refinery installations. The city has seen scattered protests by Shias who complain of discrimination by the Sunni majority.

Saudi sources also reported marches involving hundreds of people in al-Ahsa and Awwamiya near al-Qatif.

Security in Riyadh was high-profile and intense, with helicopters hovering overhead and police checks on cars and individuals heading for mosques, where protests were expected after prayers.

Police cruisers were given orders to pull over any car, tweeted Mohammed al-Qahtani, president of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association. I saw several cars being searched by officers, and they checked IDs.

It is becoming more and more evident that the most prominent adversary of the protests is the US:

So Mr. Obama has thrown his weight behind attempts by the royal family of Bahrain, the home of the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, to survive, although protesters say their demands have not been met. He has said little about political grievances in Saudi Arabia, a major oil supplier, where there were reports on Thursday of a violent dispersal of Shiite protesters. And he has limited White House critiques of Yemen, where the government is helping the United States root out a terrorist threat, even after that government opened fire on demonstrators.

If only all those protesters would just go away, and allow the President to sleep more soundly.

Labels: American Empire, Bahrain, Gulf States, Neoliberalism

UPDATE 2: Richard Perle and the many neoconservative friends of Muammar Gaddafi:

Perle traveled to Libya as a paid adviser to the Monitor Group, a prestigious Boston-based consulting firm with close ties to leading professors at the Harvard Business School. The firm named Perle a senior adviser in 2006.

The Monitor Group described Perle’s travel to Libya and the recruitment of several other prominent thinkers and former officials to burnish Libya’s and Qadhafi’s image in a series of documents obtained and released by a Libyan opposition group, the National Conference of the Libyan Opposition, in 2009.

The Monitor Group did not return phone calls left at its Boston offices Monday. But Monitor describes, in a series of documents published by the National Conference of the Libyan Opposition in 2009, an action plan to introduce and bring to Libya a meticulously selected group of independent and objective experts who would be invited to Libya, meet senior officials, hold lectures, attend workshops, and write articles that would more positively portray Libya and its controversial ruler.

A 2007 Monitor memo named among the prominent figures it had recruited to travel to Libya and meet with Qadhafi as part of the Project to Enhance the Profile of Libya and Muammar Qadhafi Perle, historian Francis Fukuyama, Princeton Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis, famous Nixon interviewer David Frost, and MIT media lab founder Nicholas Negroponte, the brother of former deputy secretary of state and director of national intelligence John Negroponte.

Hat tip to Louis Proyect

UPDATE 1: Meanwhile, in Bahrain:

More than 100,000 protesters poured into the central Pearl Square here on Tuesday in an unbroken stream stretching back for miles along a central highway in the biggest antigovernment demonstration yet in this tiny Persian Gulf kingdom.

The protesters, mostly members of the Shiite majority, marched along the eastbound side of Sheikh Khalifa Bin Salman Highway in a wide, unbroken column of red and white, the country’s colors. Men of all ages walked with women and children waving flags and calling for an end to the authoritarian government of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa.

In a nation of only a half a million citizens, the sheer size of the gathering was astonishing. The protest, organized by the Shiite opposition parties, began in the central Bahrain Mall, two miles from the square and seemed to fill the entire length of the highway between the two points.

INITIAL POST:

lenin explains:

Even at this late hour, it would be foolish to underestimate Gadaffi's ability to just hang on, to clench Libya in a rigor mortis grip. As crazed as he manifestly is, he has demonstrated considerable shrewdness in his time. For example, as soon as the Islamist opposition started become a real threat to his regime in the late 1990s, he started to look for ways to be accepted by the US-led caste of 'good guys'. The collapse of the USSR as a supplier of military hardware, trade, and ideological and moral leadership for Third Worldist states, would also have had something to do with this. The transition was made easier after 2001, and completed in 2004 partially at the best of Anglo-American oil. Gadaffi went so far, in his attempts to win over his erstwhile opponents, as to participate in anti-Islamist counterinsurgency operations in the Philippines with international support, lavish intelligence on US agencies and even compensate the victims of Lockerbie for a crime that Libya had not committed. The Bush administration might still have resisted such serenading were it not for the eager rush of European capital into Tripoli. So, Bush and Blair turned it into a story of Gadaffi seeing the light and giving up his non-existent WMD programmes, which charade Gadaffi duly participated in. This whole sequence of events was bizarre and improbable, but it worked: the subsequent oil contracts, amid a global oil price spike produced by Bush's wars, made him and his regime very wealthy. He was also able to hang opponents in public under the pretext of a fight against 'radical Islamists'. Joining the camp of American client dictatorships enabled Gadaffi to survive until this moment.

lenin further asserts that the US and the UK find Gaddafi preferable to the revolutinary alternative. If so, that might explain these live updates today from Al Jazeera:

8.34pm: Al Jazeera's White House correspondent Patty Culhane noted that Barack Obama has himself been silent about Libya for a few days, even though he had made public statements during Egypt's similar unrest.

8.32pm: John Kerry, a US politician, called the Libyan government's use of force beyond dispicable. He called on Barack Obama to reconsider sanctions against Libya, and said he hoped these were Gaddafi's last hours in power. Kerry said the international community must send a message to Gaddafi that his cowardly actions will have consequences.

8:29pm: PJ Crowley, US department of state spokesman, calls on Libya to respect rights of the thousands of US citizens in the country. He said the White House has grave concerns over the Libyan government's response to protests.

Grave concerns. Now, that's a strong condemnation. And, what precisely are these concerns? Concerns over the brutalities inflicted upon the protesters, or concerns about the extent to which the Libyan government's response increases the prospect of a successor regime more independent of the US? Note that, as in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain, the US has failed to call upon leadership of the country to step down, sticking with the political line of reform to be administered by them. Policymakers can't seem to grasp the the notion that Gaddafi, like Mubarak, no longer has the legitimacy to carry out reforms because of his recourse to violence.

There is also the possibility that Libya is perceived by Gulf states like Saudi Arabia as a test as to whether protests in Bahrain and, potentially, even on the peninsula itself, can be effectively suppressed through violence, if necessary. For now, the jury is still out as to whether the alternative strategy of draining the energy of the revolutionaries through negotiation and the implementation of innocuous reforms, as is currently being attempted in Egypt and Bahrain will ultimately succeed. Hence, the importance of the uprising in Libya. In Libya, unlike elsewhere, Gaddafi and his apparatus have nowhere to go, they must stand and fight or die. So, Libya becomes an example of what the ruling families of the Gulf can anticipate if they believe that they can only retain power through the ruthless suppression of the populace. Gaddafi's reliance upon mercernaries is particularly significant in this context. So far, the results from Libya are not encouraging, even if the outcome is far from clear.

Labels: "War on Terror", American Empire, Gulf States, Libya, Neoconservatives, Political Violence

UPDATE 1: Martin Chulov of the Guardian files an amazing story about the ongoing protests in Bahrain:

Ali Ismail had helped wash the body of a dead protester for burial and he was already talking of more blood. We will go to them and they will attack us, he said of Bahrain's riot police. Within hours he was proved correct.

Just after 5.30pm on Friday, central Manama again erupted in gunfire and screaming. Up to 200 demonstrators had attempted to march on Pearl Square, the scene of Thursday morning's savage assault that left three dead. Just over a mile from the central Bahrain landmark, soldiers and police opened fire, killing at least one more protester and leaving 50 others wounded.

We don't care if they kill 5,000 of us, a protester screamed inside the forecourt of the Salmaniya hospital, which has become a staging point for Bahrain's raging youth. The regime must fall and we will make sure it does.

According to Chulov, over 50,000 people, between 5% and 10% of the kingdom's population, attended large funeral rallies earlier in the day for the victims of the previous day's violence. After the attack upon the people who attempted to march on Pearl Square, over 7,000 people gathered at the hospital, chanting Down with the King, down with the Khalifas.

INITIAL POST: The government attacks protesters again:

Shots were fired by soldiers around Pearl roundabout in Manama, the Bahraini capital, a day after police forcibly cleared a protest encampment from the traffic circle.

The circumstances of the shooting after nightfall on Friday were not clear. Officials at the main Salmaniya hospital said at least 50 people were injured, some with gunshot wounds.

Some doctors and medics on emergency medical teams were in tears as they tended to the wounded. X-rays showed bullets still lodged inside victims.

This is a war, said Dr. Bassem Deif, an orthopedic surgeon examining people with bullet-shattered bones.

Protesters described a chaotic scene of tear gas clouds, bullets coming from many directions and people slipping in pools of blood as they sought cover.

Bahrain's crown prince, meanwhile, called for calm, saying it was time for dialogue, not fighting.

Someone posted this comment at the Guardian website:

Just got back from salmaniya hospital, carnage and chaos. Lots of wounded and around 30000 people outside the hospital. There was a rumour that they were going to march back down to the pearl roundabout. Lots more arriving at the hospital. Absolutely shocking scenes. People praying in the corridoors it is an absolute disgrace. some of the things i have just seen will stay with me forever. We have gone from a protest to what feels like a civil war. For the first time tonight I was scared. You stop at traffic lights and the police car next to you they are loading their guns. At the big intersections they have huge screen tvs saw flashing lights and crapped myself again.

Meanwhile, President Obama limits his condemnation of the violence to urging restraint. I know next to nothing about this region, but I can't help wondering, are the protests and violence about to cross the strait to Saudi Arabia?

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Gulf States, Neoliberalism, Political Violence, YouTube

UPDATE 3: Nicholas Kristof provides an American exceptionalist perspective about the violence in Bahrain:

As a reporter, you sometimes become numbed to sadness. But it is heartbreaking to be in modern, moderate Bahrain right now and watch as a critical American ally uses tanks, troops, guns and clubs to crush a peaceful democracy movement and then lie about it.

This kind of brutal repression is normally confined to remote and backward nations, but this is Bahrain. An international banking center. The home of an important American naval base, the Fifth Fleet. A wealthy and well-educated nation with a large middle class and cosmopolitan values.

Where to begin? Is he really that ignorant of Jeanne Kirkpatrick and her advocacy on behalf of dictatorial US allies?

UPDATE 2: According to the New York Times, the army has taken control of the streets in Manama except for the area near the main hospital. And, curiously, the Al Jazeeza live blog has scrubbed the 2:10am report that I posted in Update 1.

UPDATE 1: Reports from Bahrain suggest a Tianamen scenario, or perhaps, a Taiwanese 2-28 massacre:

Troops and tanks have locked down the Bahraini capital of Manama on Thursday after riot police swinging clubs and firing tear gas smashed into demonstrators in a pre-dawn assault, killing at least four people.

Hours after the attack on Manama's main Pearl Roundabout, the military announced a ban on gatherings, saying on state TV that it had key parts of the capital under its control.

Khalid Al Khalifa, Bahrain's foreign minister, justified the crackdown as necessary because the demonstrators were polarising the country and pushing it to the brink of the sectarian abyss.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with his Gulf counterparts, he also said the violence was regrettable. Two people had died in police firing on the protesters prior to Thursday's deadly police raid.

An Al Jazeera correspondent, who cannot be named for security reasons, said that clashes were no longer limited to one place...they are now spread out in different parts of the city. He said that the hospitals are full of injured people after last night's police raid on the pro-reform demonstrators.

Some of them are severely injured with gunshots. Patients include doctors and emergency personnel who were overrun by the police while trying to attend to the wounded.

Another Al Jazeera online producer said that booms could be heard from different parts of the city, suggesting that tear-gas is being used to disperse the protesters in several neighbourhoods.

The protesters may be having more success in resisting the crackdown than that this article indicates, after all, the military statement that key parts of Manama are under control could be construed as indicating that much of the city is not. Interestingly, the report on the Al Jazeera live blog has a different emphasis:

2.10am Al Jazeera correspondents report that clashes in the capital are no longer confined to one place, but have spread to multiple locations across the city.

Doesn't sound like the capital has been locked down as described in the first sentence of the article, does it?

INITIAL POST: Ugly scenes in the early morning hours from Manama, the capital of Bahrain, where protesters, predominately from the repressed Shia majority, were brutally attacked:

Without warning, hundreds of heavily armed riot police officers rushed into Pearl Square here early Thursday, firing tear gas and concussion grenades at the thousands of demonstrators who were sleeping there as part of a widening protest against the nation’s absolute monarchy.

Men, women and young children ran screaming, choking and collapsing.

The square was filled with the crack of tear gas canisters and the wail of ambulances rushing people to the hospital. Teams of plainclothes police officers carrying shotguns swarmed through the area, but it was unclear if they used the weapons to subdue the crowd.

There was a fog of war, said Mohammed Ibrahim as he took refuge in a nearby gas station. He was barefoot, had lost his wallet and had marks on his leg where he said he had been beaten. There were children, forgive them.

Live updates from the Guardian reported that armoured vehicles, including tanks, in the streets of Manama and that the security forces are turned away ambulances sent for over a thousand injured victims who remained in the square.

Now, the military is asserting control over the streets:

The Bahrain military, backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers, took control of most of this capital on Thursday hours after hundreds of heavily armed riot police officers fired shotguns, tear gas and concussion grenades to break up a pro-democracy camp inspired by the tumult swirling across the Middle East.

Soldiers took up positions on foot, controlled traffic and told demonstrators that any further protests would be banned. The intervention came after police, without warning, rushed into Pearl Square in the early hours of the morning, in a crackdown on demonstrators who were sleeping there as part of a widening protest against the nation’s absolute monarchy.

At least five people died, some of them reportedly killed in their sleep with scores of shotgun pellets to the face and chest, according to a witness and three doctors who received the dead and at least 200 wounded at a hospital here. The witness and the physicians spoke in return for anonymity for fear of official reprisals.

And, the number of deaths is likely to rise:

17:02pm Al Jazeera's correspondent says that three more bodies are being kept in the morgue of Salmaniya hospital. There are also reports of another victim - a young girl. Two more patients are fighting for their lives in the hospital. There are also a lot of missing people. A medical source told our correspondent that the army may have taken away bodies in a refrigerated truck.

By way of background, admittedly courtesy of wikipedia, Bahrain is an archipelago in the Persian Gulf in which a Sunni minority rules over a Shia majority. It has a long rich history as a trading center dating back to ancient times, with the people of the island being among the first to embrace Islam. The Sunni Al-Khalifa family cemented its rule over the archipelago in the 19th Century, with the British playing a prominent role in the country's governance behind the scenes. With the emergence of the oil industry in the 20th Century, the monarchy, with British assistance, suppressed leftist labor movements agitating for political reforms in the 1950s.

More recently, in the 1990s, there was an uprising involving leftists, liberals and Islamicists against the monarchy. It was considered the first such coalition of such groups centered around issues of democratic reform. In Bahrain, they demanded the restoration of the Parliament dissolved in the mid-1970s as well as the restoration of the constitution that was suspended during this same period. With the passage of mild political reforms in 2001, the violence of the uprising abated, but has not fully disappeared, as one can readily find accounts of Shia boycotts of elections as well as riots and protests persisting to the present day. A brief persual of the Amnesty International library of reports reveals numerous episodes of illegal detentions and suppression of political activity.

Indeed, the most striking thing that one discovers about Bahrain is that the country has been experiencing ongoing political turmoil for decades. So, it is not suprising to discover that the implementation of the most recent reforms does not appear to have altered the essential autocratic structure of the society. Prior to the attack on the square, protesters demanded the release of political prisoners, more jobs and housing, the creation of a more representative and empowered parliament, a new constitution written by the people and a new a new cabinet that does not include Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa Bin Salman Al Khalifa, who has been in office for 40 years. Shias assert that they are discriminated against in terms of access to education, government employment and political participation in the government, but while the current protests have a significant sectarian dimension, they have, as have past protest movements, drown support from many Sunnis as well, which, in their current manifestation, may reflect the extent to which neoliberal policies are impoverishing many Bahranis, regardless of religious background.

And how does a monarchy maintain the illusion of order in such a society? By recruiting foreigners to serve in the security forces and instigating sectarian conflict by actively seeking to diminish the influence of the suppressed majority:

Bahrain's security forces are the backbone of the Al Khalifa regime, now facing unprecedented unrest after overnight shootings. But large numbers of their personnel are recruited from other countries, including Jordan, Pakistan and Yemen.

Tanks and troops from Saudi Arabia were also reported to have been deployed in support of Bahraini forces. Precise numbers are a closely guarded secret, but in recent years the Manama government has made a concerted effort to recruit non-native Sunni Muslims as part of an attempt to swing the demographic balance against the Shia majority – who make up around 65% of the population of 1 million.

Bahrainis often complain that the riot police and special forces do not speak the local dialect, or in the case of Baluchis from Pakistan, do not speak Arabic at all and are reviled as mercenaries. Officers are typically Bahrainis, Syrians or Jordanians. Iraqi Ba'athists who served in Saddam Hussein's security forces were recruited after the US-led invasion in 2003. Only the police employs Bahraini Shias.

The secret police – the Bahrain national security agency, known in Arabic as the Mukhabarat – has undergone a process of Bahrainisationin recent years after being dominated by the British until long after independence in 1971. Ian Henderson, who retired as its director in 1998, is still remembered as the Butcher of Bahrain because of his alleged use of torture. A Jordanian official is currently described as the organisation's master torturer.

Meanwhile, where is the US in all this? Predictably, the New York Times provides the pragmatic perspective:

Though much smaller than Egypt, Bahrain is another pillar of the American security architecture in the Middle East. King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, a Sunni Muslim, is a staunch ally of Washington in its showdown with Iran’s Shiite theocracy. In diplomatic cables made public by wikileaks, he urged administration officials to take military action to disable Iran’s nuclear program.Bahrain’s situation is also more complicated than Egypt’s because the uprising there is not purely a case of economically thwarted young people rebelling against a hidebound regime. It has a majority Shiite population that is expressing long-simmering resentments against the Sunni minority that rules with a tight grip.

Bahrain is considered a valued ally in the so-called war on terror as well.

Labels: "War on Terror", American Empire, Bahrain, Gulf States, Neoliberalism