The Great End Game?

While all eyes are currently focused on Libya, the unrest in Bahrain might be of more interest in the medium term as this revolt may have more bearing on The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. What follows may be a long draw of the bow, but the lead up to WWI is not entirely dissimilar to events in the middle east. In the former case, several Balkan nations experienced civil unrest/war until the assassination of the Archduke became the trigger for the powerful nations to mobilize.

In Born of the Great Game - echoes of the past, I attempted to summarize some of the causes of discontent, with a nod to the historical colonial backgrounds behind the current configuration of most countries in the Middle East. Kuwait and Bahrain appear to be typical Colonial British Era constructs, albeit built on the back of some local Royal, but in essence they have a similar strategic role as Singapore or Gibraltar. Namely, they serve as good control points and naval bases along a strategic trade route. The same reason the US has several military bases in Bahrain (see also).

While US relations with 'the elites' of Bahrain appear to have been cozy, The New York times writes that US views on the Shia majority have been somewhat negative.

Dim View of U.S. Posture Toward Bahraini Shiites Is Described
Michael Slackman
As Bahrain’s leaders struggle to hold back a rising popular revolt against their absolute rule, Washington’s posture toward the Shiite majority, which is spearheading the opposition, could prove crucial to future relations with this strategically valuable Persian Gulf nation. The United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based here, helping ensure the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz and the gulf, and safeguarding American interests in this volatile region.

Over the years, the military, according to the advisers and the human rights advocate, believed that King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa and his court were reform-minded leaders who could advance democracy and preserve stability. That narrative contrasts sharply with the experience of the Shiites, as documented by human rights groups and some of the military’s own advisers.

“The problem has been that we have been doing everything we can to cuddle up to the Khalifas and have been consciously ignoring at best the situation of Bahraini Shiites,” said Gwenyth Todd, a former political adviser to the Navy in Bahrain from 2004 to 2007.

“The military here always took a position against the human rights community,” Mr. Rajab said. “The U.S. did not build up any good relations with the opposition. They always categorize them as fundamentalist or extremist in their reports, in order to justify their political position in support of the government.”

“If the United States does not modify its policy now to take into account the Shia, there is a danger that worries me, if we are seen as backing the government to the end,” said a United States government official in Bahrain who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.

Several sources cite Saudi nervousness at the fall of long time ally Hosni Mubarak, whom they may host as a guest, but also the fracas in their small neighbor Bahrain.
The nervousness here is mainly due to the presence in Suadi Arabia of a small community of Shia Mulsims in the East neighboring Bahrain. The animosity is due to the long standing conflict between Arabs and Persians (ie Iran), the latter being predominantly of the Shia branch of Islam. Possibly a second reason for the nervousness is that Bahrain may serve as a small microcosm of sorts for the situation in Saudi Arabia itself.

Standing by their man...

Unrest Encircles Saudis, Stoking Sense of Unease
Robert F Worth, New York Times

Saudi Arabia is far less vulnerable to democracy movements than other countries in the region, thanks to its vast oil wealth, its powerful religious establishment and the popularity of its king.

But the country’s rulers were shaken by the forced departure of the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, a close and valued ally. They are anxiously monitoring the continuing protests in neighboring Bahrain and in Yemen, with which Saudi Arabia shares a porous 1,100-mile border. Those concerns come on top of long-festering worries about the situation in Iraq, where the toppling of Saddam Hussein has empowered Iran, Saudi Arabia’s great rival and nemesis.

Born of the Great Game - echoes of the past?

The following is hastily compiled, poorly researched and slightly off topic... but hopefully draws a little attention to something that is missing from recent news coverage about the recent revolutions in Arab countries.

Since the Tunisian revolt and removal of the repressive regime of President Ben Ali dissent has spread throughout "the Arab World". The Dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt followed with more protests occurring in other countries in the region notably Bahrain, Yemen and Libya.

While some partisan commentators were quick to spruik the threat of Islamic this or Islamic that, and others the "incompetence" of the Obama administration for not predicting these incidents, a few have attempted to identify the common themes.

In Food, civil unrest and anarchy I linked to some articles suggesting that food price was one common theme.

Arabs rejoin the world
David Hirst (from The Guardian), The Age.

No other such geopolitical ensemble has so long boasted such a collection of dinosaurs, such inveterate survivors from an earlier, totalitarian era; no other has so completely missed out on the waves of ''people's power'' that swept away the Soviet empire and despotisms in Latin America, Asia and Africa. In rallying at last to this now universal but essentially Western value called democracy, they are in effect rejoining the world, catching up with history that has left them behind.

If it was in Tunis that the celebrated ''Arab street'' first moved, the country in which - apart from their own - Arabs everywhere immediately hoped that it would move next was Egypt.

Mr Hirst then gives his own reasons for Egypt being important in shaping the views and thoughts of the region, but forgets probably the most important. For centuries the Universities and Schools of Egypt have been at the centre of Arabic and Islamic thinking.

[The] burning questions will be about where the Arab democratic revolution strikes next. Though Europe in 1989 is the obvious precedent, the kings and presidents may not fall like dominoes as the Honeckers (East Germany) and Ceausescus (Romania) did. And, in the wake of Ben Ali and Mubarak, others may not fall so easily or prettily either. That is already apparent from the two latest, and most dramatic, episodes in the almost unceasing pro-democracy turbulence that grips a good half-dozen Arab countries.

The 200-year-old Bahraini monarchy may have currently retreated into an attempt at reconciliation, but this regime has already shown how tenacious and tough - and bloody - it can be.

As for Libya, there could hardly ever have been much doubt that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, cruellest and most capricious of Arab dictators, would seek to do what he has always openly proclaimed he would do to any opponent of his 41-year-old Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab State of the Masses: which is to ''cut them to pieces''.

But most regimes are candidates. Among the few likely exceptions, perhaps the most important, and certainly the most apt, is Lebanon. Ever turbulent, ever the most exposed of Arabs to the consequences of what other Arabs do, it might logically seem destined to be among the first to go. But it isn't - mainly because, alone in the region, it has always been a democracy of sorts.

All very democratically inspiring - and forgetful. Jeremy Bowen at the BBC has a slightly better interpretation.