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

Don't have a lot of comments on the Bush speech ... same old crap. The Democratic response was actually more interesting. Billmon had an interesting post up a few weeks ago about Webb's populism. Whiskey Bar is still down, probably permanently down, so here it is on an aggregator (scroll down to "Comrade Webb")

Other than that, all I have to add is that the Democrat talking heads should stop giving Bush a free pass on portraying the puppet government of Iraq as totally benign. There was a point in Bush's speech in which he mentioned Iran's influence over Iraq's Shi'ite death squads and Shi'ite militias. One wishes someone would bring up the Maliki administration's influence over Iraq's Shi'ite death squads and, you know, the extent to which the new Iraqi army is a Shi'ite militia.

Labels: Bush, Shia, State of the Union

As Atrios and Josh Marshall debate the true meaning of the latest missive by Knight of the New Republic, Lawrence Kaplan, I'd just like to point out how appalling his post is -- and no I don't mean the dog head thing (which sounds like bullshit to me -- but what do I know?).

Hawks like Kaplan simply refuse to admit the invasion that they advocated directly caused this civil war -- and all the horror that it entails. The "sectarian rage" now "tearing Iraq apart" came about because the US destroyed civil society in Iraq. Kaplan simply cannot conceive that US troops play any other role than "a vital buffer between Iraq's warring sects" and he seems to think the warring sects sprang forth fully-formed after someone sowed the earth with Richard Perl's teeth.

The US came in, wrecked the place, set up a puppet government dominated by one religious group oppressed for years by another religious group, outfitted the puppet government with a US-backed militia that goes around killing members of the other group, and then guys like Kaplan get surprised when civil war breaks out. People need to get it through their heads that Iraqis -- especially Sunnis -- think the US-backed government is a joke and are basically afraid of Iraq's so-called security forces. Iraqi blogger Riverbend has vividly described the "security" Sunnis feel when security forces come calling and in another post stated frankly, "[T]he Iraqi security forces are as much to fear as the black-clad and hooded men attacking mosques."

When events like the horrors Kaplan describes occur one must wonder to what extent the rage sunnis apparently feel toward Shiites is due to the perception that the shiites are actively collaborating with the conquerors of Iraq and due to the fact that Iraq's "security forces" basically act as a Shiite militia. Iraq's deputy prime minister made this point in an Al Jazeera interview commenting on Saturday's Shiite-on-Sunni rampage: (from the Times):

In comments broadcast on the Arab satellite television channel Al Jazeera, Salam al-Zubaie, a deputy prime minister and a Sunni Arab, called the events in Jihad "a real massacre" and suggested that Iraq's Shiite-led security forces were to blame because they had been infiltrated by militiamen.

The government forces, he said, "coordinate with these filthy terror groups who are roaming the streets."

But, you know, I guess it's easier to blame it all on violent arabs who cannot "reprogram their coarsened and brittle cultures" to quote Kaplan. Which is nice for Kaplan ... regarding the debate between Atrios and Marshall, my take is that Kaplan is saying that he doesn't have blood on his hands because those people are just crazy...

Labels: Lawrence Kaplan, Shia, Sunnis, TNR