Bahrain Contra Iraq: Foreign-backed "Terrorism" vs. Indigenous "Uprising"

Bouncing around in my mind for a while now have been two big-picture thoughts related to Bahrain, which at some point soon hopefully I will have time to write about more formally than here.

One of these is the disparity in narratives regarding what's going on today in Iraq and the discussion -- to the extent that one still exists in the mainstream media -- surrounding the continued political deadlock in Bahrain, which seems likely to be reiterated soon in the form of yet another opposition boycott of parliamentary elections this fall.

Obviously, the ideology and tactics of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham have earned it few supporters, certainly not among governments, but one imagines also among ordinary people in Iraq and Syria.  Yet notwithstanding Western antipathy to the group, still the ongoing rebellion in Iraq has forced U.S. and other policymakers to engage very seriously with the longstanding grievances of Sunni citizens in particular -- so much so that President Obama has openly made American aid for the country contingent on substantive efforts to redress them.

On Friday, for instance, Obama is quoted in the Washington Post as saying,

So, any action that we make take to provide assistance to Iraqi security forces has to be joined by a serious and sincere effort by Iraq's leaders to set aside sectarian differences, to promote stability and account for the legitimate interests of all of Iraq's communities, and to continue to build the capacity of an effective security force. ...

So this should be a wake-up call. Iraq's leaders have to demonstrate a willingness to make hard decisions and compromises on behalf of the Iraqi people in order to bring the country together.

A sectarian group systematically marginalized from politics?  Security forces composed disproportionately and systematically of the politically-dominant sect?  A frustrated out-group largely oppositional to the government -- including a small minority of individuals willing to pursue even violence in order to rectify perceived discrimination in all aspects of society?

Why does that sound familiar?  Oh that's right -- that's a description of the status quo in Bahrain since (in the post-King Hamad period at least) 2002.

Except that whereas Iraq's Sunni community is recognized as having legitimate, domestically-rooted grievances owing to the retributive policies of the Shi'a-led government since 2006, in Bahrain the analogous complaints of the Shi'a are met with accusations of outside influence, as if decades (centuries, really, but who's counting right?) of marginalization were insufficient cause for popular rebellion. Iraq's is a Sunni "war of liberation," in the words of one former Iraqi army general (or, according to the Akhbar Al-Khaleej cartoon at the top of this post, an "intifada by Arab tribes"), while Bahrain's February 2011 uprising and aftermath continues to be nothing more than an Iranian-sponsored "attempted coup".

And in case you require some recent examples of the origins of such grievances in Bahrain, here are some choice ones from the past month:

• Following a historic vote in March to publicly quiz Bahrain's Finance Minister over accusations of corruption, a decision later invalidated on a technicality under government pressure, on June 3 the opposition-less elected lower house of parliament voted to limit *its own ability* to question ministers. The change increases the threshold of votes required to question a minister from one-half to two-thirds. Among other things, such a change would effectively preclude a parliamentary quizzing even if al-Wifaq and/or other opposition groups (hypothetically) returned to parliament in the fall.


• On the same day, parliament also approved a bill to replace the elected municipal council of the Capital Governorate -- a body that in February called for the resignation of its Al Khalifa governor over allegations of corruption -- with a General Secretariat appointed by the king and elected members of civil society institutions.


• Two weeks later on June 17, parliament approved a bill allowing the revocation of Bahraini nationality from any citizen who acquires another nationality without written approval from Minister of Interior. Likely targets include political activists who hold dual-nationality, already no strangers to cancellation of their Bahraini citizenship, as well as Sunni tribal families rumored to be leaving the country for greener (and less burning-tire-filled) pastures elsewhere in the GCC.

A final item deserves a paragraph of its own. This is the continued athletic and international jet-setting exploits of Bahrain's "national" triathlon team.  This important Bahraini institution, which seems constantly to receive no little feigned fanfare and local media coverage, is indicative of the extent to which the ruling family and other elites apparently remain, in the space of a very small island, a world apart from the daily issues facing Sunni and Shi'i citizens alike.  (See the final bullet point about potentially significant Sunni emigration.)

Of the 15 team members reported in the Gulf Daily News story, five (one-third) are Al Khalifa, including two sons of King Hamad, and three others are Westerners. A perfect symbol of the "new Bahrain": Brits and royals.

Indeed, I was told in a recent conversation with a well-placed individual that Riffa increasingly is returning to its historical status as a tribal capital and seat of government, the King barely leaving his palace and members of the ruling family using a private airport there, avoiding altogether the hassle of coming into Manama.  Of course, why go to Manama when in 10 hours you can be swimming and biking in Syracuse, New York!

Bahrain: the first post-oil state.  Not the first to run out of oil or money from oil -- Abu Safaa takes care of that -- but the first to stop using oil money to provide for ordinary citizens, prioritizing instead royal jogging and biking trips to far-flung destinations.

Update: The Bahrain News Agency has finally issued its summary of Joe Biden's seemingly random "consultation" with King Hamad on Monday, ostensibly on the situation in Iraq. Of course, one suspects that Biden was on the giving rather than receiving end of the advice, which one hopes should have touched on some of the points in this post.  According to the BNA, the two "agreed on the need for the Iraqi leaders to set aside their sectarian strife and confront the serious security threat to their country." *Ahem* And the similar situation in Bahrain.

Not appearing in the BNA version, however, is another section of the joint statement, which the Kuwait News Agency helpfully reports:

It added that Biden and King Hamad also spoke about ongoing efforts at reform and dialogue within Bahrain, where Biden "encouraged the Government of Bahrain, opposition parties, and all segments of Bahraini society to reach agreement on meaningful reforms and a path forward that addresses the legitimate aspirations of all Bahrainis."

Iraq Chaos, Fear of U.S. Realignment Feeds Bahrain Conspiracy Mill

If there's one thing disliked by most people, not to mention stock markets and autocratic leaders of nations held together by tenuous overlapping domestic and international political alliances, it's uncertainty.  Unfortunately, the somehow-unnoticed-until-four-days-ago ISIS takeover of broad swaths of Syria and Iraq has generated quite a bit of it now, and we seem to be approaching a full freak-out stage.

For most of the Arab Gulf, Kuwait being the notable exception given what happened after the last one, the specter of what Juan Cole calls the coming "Second Iran-Iraq War" is most frightening not because the GCC is likely to be caught in the (direct) cross-fire, but because it may finally cement what's been worrying Gulf Arabs -- leaders and ordinary citizens alike -- for the better part of three years: a tangible U.S.-Iranian rapprochement and, in the longer term, inevitable strategic alliance.

A post in Friday's New York Times gives a useful breakdown of the conflicting interests of the U.S., Iran, al-Maliki, the Gulf monarchies, Turkey, and the Iraqi Kurds, but the principle at work is simple enough: the enemy (Iran) of my enemy (radical Sunni insurgents) is my friend.  And when one begins to consider all the potential issue linkages that may be in play -- the Iranian nuclear program, the U.S. position on Syria, Iranian involvement with the Huthis in Yemen -- then the regional implications grow even more dizzying.

The upshot is that once-crazy-sounding claims by the likes of Khalifa bin Ahmad about secret U.S.-Iranian plots to overthrow Bahrain and the Gulf monarchies start to sound just un-crazy enough to get otherwise reasonable people riled up.  Hence the GDN's rendering of the U.S.S. George H. W. Bush preparing to unleash uranium-tipped Tomahawk missiles on Riffa, above.

Apart from analyses about converging U.S. and Iran rhetoric on Iraq, feeding this fear in Bahrain also is a more standard sort of scandal: reports of a "secret" U.S. document outlining a State Department program to "unseat" the Bahraini government.  The paper, apparently obtained by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the Middle East Briefing (more on these guys later), in fact is a classified overview of the well-known Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) program.  

The Middle East Briefing "exposé" begins,

The Obama Administration has been pursuing a policy of covert support for the Muslim Brotherhood and other insurgent movements in the Middle East since 2010. MEB has obtained a just-released U.S. State Department document through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that confirms the Obama Administration’s pro-active campaign for regime change throughout the Middle East and North Africa region.

The October 22, 2010 document, titled “Middle East Partnership Initiative: Overview,” spells out an elaborate structure of State Department programs aimed at directly building “civil society” organizations, particularly non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to alter the internal politics of the targeted countries in favor of U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives.

In short, this "secret" document essentially repeats what appears very prominently on the front page of the MEPI website, namely that "MEPI supports organizations and individuals in their efforts to promote political, economic, and social reform in the Middle East and North Africa." (In any case, one has a hard time believing that any real "secrets" would be disclosed to a Dubai-based risk analysis firm, FOIA or no FOIA.)  Indeed, if the "analysts" at Middle East Briefing were looking for real controversy, they would have done better simply to browse MEPI's Wikipedia entry, which includes among other historical details its creation by George W. Bush and the appointment of Dick Cheney's daughter as its first supervisor at the State Department.

On the other hand, how one connects this decade-long program to a "policy of covert support for the Muslim Brotherhood" is beyond my powers of intuition.  I recall many Bahraini students on MEPI programs while I was in the country, and the Muslim Brotherhood is about as far from their politics as one can imagine.

One presumes, then, that the anti-MB purpose relates to the particular views of the founders of this Middle East Briefing, whose website tells that its parent company, "Orient Advisory Group, ... is a research and risk assessment firm based in both Washington DC and Dubai UAE." Hrm, imagine that -- Muslim Brotherhood hysteria coming out of the UAE! Methinks things are beginning to make sense.

The mebriefing.com domain name was registered less than a year ago on September 26, 2013, and since then the Muslim Brotherhood seems to be a sustained focus.  For instance, this article on "cooperation" between Washington and the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood announces that "MEB will publish a series of reports based on documents it obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the US State Department focusing on the US-Muslim Brotherhood 'understandings' in different moments of the relation between the two sides" -- of which the MEPI report is presumably one.

Of course, don't tell this to Bahraini officials, including the Interior Ministry's Assistant Undersecretary for Legal Affairs, as well as al-Asalah MP and anti-American extraordinaire Abd al-Halim Murad, who are busy calling for formal investigations and emergency parliamentary sessions, respectively.  Let's just pray they don't catch wind of the National Democratic Institute -- or the U.S. Navy base in Juffair!

Now for a few couple of items in lazy bullet-point form:

• The GDN has published Bahrain-related excerpts from Hillary Clinton's new submission in the category of the contrived pre-presidential-run memoir.


• Bassiouni gave an interview to Al-Monitor on Bahrain's BICI implementation on the sidelines of last week's U.S.-Islamic Forum in Doha, where he chaired a panel.

A Tangled Web of Gulf Politics

"So this means you guys are going to protect us no matter what -- right?"
It's been a while since I've had a chance to post here. The manuscript for my forthcoming book on Bahrain was due May 1, and my family is set to be enlarged by one any day now. Oh, and I've spent the last few weeks moving across town. So I've gotten a bit behind.

The book, for which I'm still thinking of a catchy title, is based (on the empirical side) on my Ph.D. fieldwork in Bahrain, but deals conceptually with the case of ascriptive group conflict in the rentier state. As such, it should be of interest both to those who study Bahrain and the Gulf as well as political scientists generally.  I don't have an exact publication date, but I suspect it will be out (in the Indiana University Press Series in Arab and Islamic Studies) sometime in the fall.  I'll probably write more about it here once we're closer to that time.

As far as events in Bahrain go, it seems that the most notable news -- as has been the case for a few months -- is on the diplomatic front.  Something of a perfect storm of geopolitics now embroils the Gulf region: lingering but ostensibly easing intra-GCC tensions, lingering but ostensibly thawing Saudi-Iran tensions, seemingly progressing but could-derail-anyday-now nuclear talks between Iran and the U.S., and, with respect to Bahrain in particular, diplomatic maneuvering featuring its two Western patrons.

At the risk of being uncreative, we can just take these in order.

• The GCC says that its internal "spat" has ended.  Yet this despite no apparent change in behavior by the offending Qatar, and even more curiously absent the return of the Saudi, Emirati, and Bahraini ambassadors to Doha. See David Roberts for the Council on Foreign Relations for some sense of what is going on.  Moreover, I've heard from several places about a secondary dispute involving Bahrain and Qatar particularly, related to accusations that the latter is attempting to poach (or already has poached) some noted Bahraini families, among them the Bahraini Al Jalahma.


• I follow less and know less about the course of Saudi-Iran diplomacy.  But I read the newspaper enough to know that, after spending the past few months denying having done so, finally Saudi Arabia has admitted reaching out to Tehran for an official visit to Riyadh in an apparent effort to thaw relations.  At the same time, Simon Henderson reports on a "surprise rotation" of senior Saudi defense officials.


• The status of U.S.-Iran negotiations I know and care even less about, mainly because following such things too deeply is a quick way to become disillusioned with the entire American political system. And since merely reading headlines in the New York Times is usually sufficient to do that, I try not to overdo it. So you can do your own research here.

On Bahrain we have too many items for a single bullet point:

• The annual visit of a senior Bahraini dignitary--this year King Hamad himself--to the Royal Windsor Horse Show is turning out predictably, with rights groups and op-eds slamming the UK's support for dictatorships, etc. etc. Longtime friend of Bahrain Prince Andrew, who was set to be a keynote speaker at a Bahrain-organized "promotional event," has even been shamed into cancelling.  Of course, the UK having just in late April broke ground in Bahrain on the largest naval facility outside of the British mainland (see picture at the top), it's hard to imagine British-Bahrain relations undergoing a reversal anytime soon. Indeed, if the case is anything like British-Saudi relations, al-Wifaq is likely to be added to Britain's list of terrorist organizations à la the Muslim Brotherhood.


• In contrast to the Brits' thoughtful horse show invitation, the U.S. sent King Hamad Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Anne Patterson, whom he was, one imagines, rather less pleased to receive.  Far from chairing promotional events, Patterson spent her two days in the country "underscor[ing] US encouragement of reform and reconciliation through the ongoing [sic] National Dialogue." (Someone really should tell her about the National Dialogue.)  One suspects she may also have reiterated U.S. annoyance at Bahrain's recent signing of trade deals with Russia.


• The Washington Institute continues its coverage of Iranian destabilization of Bahrain and thus the Gulf and thus we can't trust them to follow through on any nuclear deal!$@% in "Iran and Bahrain: Crying Wolf, or Wolf at the Door?" This latest article is more clever than usual for its framing, on evidence in the rhetorical title and summary, as a piece critical of the Bahraini government.  In fact, the "criticism" is that Bahrain needs to do a better job of marshaling (what is already presumed valid) evidence in demonstration of Iranian involvement with the opposition, and should stop referring to everyone as "terrorists" so that Western observers can better make out who the real (Iranian-backed) terrorists are. Thus:
  

  Moving forward, the Bahraini government will need to exhibit a clearer commitment to rule of law, distinguishing between demonstrators and terrorists and dealing with each accordingly. Only then will its foreign partners be able to effectively assess new evidence of Iranian support for local militants.

  Ah, I see what you did there.

Finally, no longer Bahrain-related, but: The Monkey Cage, a new political science-y blog at the Washington Post run by former Foreign Policy Mideast Channel editor Marc Lynch, recently featured a great article by Kristin Smith Diwan on Kuwait's ongoing and unusually public royal feud.

Update: A post on Carnegie Endowment's Sada blog discusses Bahrain's Muslim Brotherhood conundrum.  Nothing new as far as I can see, but it's good that some others are highlighting this issue, which obviously involves a tenuous domestic and regional political balance that will be interesting to watch going forward.

Ambassadors for Hire

Given the State Department's own recent negative evaluation of current U.S. Ambassador to Bahrain Thomas Krajeski, which of course only reinforced the views of many Bahrainis, perhaps it is no surprise that a former American envoy should seize the opportunity to jump back into the diplomatic spotlight -- and potentially pocket a bit of money for his new consulting firm in the process.  Just as President Clinton remains a more popular figure among ordinary Americans (and certainly Arabs) than Bush or Obama, representing as he does the "good old days" of a strong economy and relative security, so too does former Ambassador Adam Ereli seem to symbolize the less complicated diplomacy and geopolitics of the pre-Arab Spring period.

Now vice-chairman of the Washington-based PR firm Mercury, Ereli is fresh off a tour last week of Qatar, where he weighed in on what he euphemistically called the "family spat" between GCC member states.  While he seemed to avoid overt criticism, he was not far from the Saudi position in highlighting the "unsustainability" of Qatar's foreign policy.  The Gulf Times reports,

He said that no country in an integrated world economy could afford to go it alone.

"In 2002, Saudi Arabia stopped sending aggregates that you need to make cement for concrete to Qatar.

"What if they were to do that today? What will that do to the multi-billion dollar worth of infrastructure that is being built today? It will be like turning off the water or turning off the electricity,” he said.

He concludes in a separate interview,

Qatar has to follow a proactive approach in defending its reputation and it must be persuasive in explaining to the people the thinking behind its policy and make a case for itself to generate its response to the critics.

If only there were a seasoned veteran of the region with close ties to neighboring states as well as to Washington!  But, in fact, one need not even rely on such insinuations, as Gulf Times piece states explicitly that Ereli "said his company Mercury could help Qatar build its image in the US":

“Having Al Jazeera America TV network was not enough to build a positive image,” Ereli observed.

“I think Al Jazeera America has a great future in the US but they’ve got to overcome some very entrenched negative attitudes to gain an audience,” he added.  

Gosh, what a helpful and totally non-opportunist guy that Ereli is!

Having already demonstrated his potential usefulness for the Qataris, then, Ereli next sprung into action on the other side of the GCC "family spat."  As today's Gulf Daily News front page suggests, Ereli made clear in nuanced fashion that he is "not a fan of US policy towards Bahrain right now," saying that the Obama Administration "pulled an Egypt" in Bahrain following the unrest of 2011. See, Qatar, these are the sorts of hard-hitting American colloquialisms you can expect when you roll with Ereli and Mercury!

Never mind, of course, that Ereli was ambassador in Bahrain until June 2011, and presumably had a hand in crafting the flawed U.S. response to the uprising of which he is such a detractor, given that there is no discernible difference between "US policy towards Bahrain right now" and US policy towards Bahrain when he was running the show.

In case you haven't yet had your fill of American catch-phrases, Ereli is quoted further as saying,

The reason I think we have pulled an Egypt is because we threw Hosni Mubarak under the bus in a very unseemly way.

I don't think we are doing that with the Al Khalifas [sic] and I don't think we will do that with the Al Khalifas [sic].

But let me be clear, if I was an Al Khalifa I'd be asking myself 'where's my friend in need?'

We [the US] beat up on them all the time, in public, for no reason and with no justification.

However, Ereli's remarks are probably on point in at least one respect.  The balance of violence in Bahrain between government and anti-government forces is far different today from what it was in February 2011 -- and it will be difficult for U.S. policymakers to ignore this fact with continued hedging along the reform-security continuum.

The pro-government group Citizens for Bahrain, which I'd not be surprised to discover is a product of Mercury itself given its fluent, Americanized English and prodigious production, recently spammed my Inbox with an article titled, "A year of Bahrain martyrs: 0 protestors, 6 police." The gimmick is that, according to al-Wifaq's own statistics on fatalities, between April 2013 and April 2014 the death toll has fallen entirely on the side of riot police.  (The protester deaths the group discounts as unsubstantiated or as having occurred while engaged in violence.)

Whatever the exact ratio, it is clear that the near-daily attacks on riot police are what dominate the headlines today on Bahrain, rather than continued (and thus from a media standpoint boring) coverage of political stagnation or repression.  Coverage of this year's Formula One race, for instance, which just concluded, seemed tilted far more toward actual race coverage than in previous years.  I guess the partial annexation of Eastern European countries doesn't hurt either.

From the state's perspective, of course, this is all welcome news.  If the unfortunate cost is a few lives of largely-non-national security personnel, then such is the political game.  Indeed, just a month ago King Hamad was in Pakistan for the first visit of a Bahraini head of state in 40 years, to discuss, among other things, "ways to increase export of Pakistani manpower to Bahrain."

Another casualty of the present focus on opposition violence is media coverage of another compelling story from last week, which is the untimely if predictable end of a parliamentary effort to quiz the Finance Minister over alleged financial irregularities.  The effort by MPs would have been the first public quizzing since the 2002 reinstatement of parliament, yet it has died a week after having been declared "invalid" on a procedural technicality.  In the words of one member, "We were on our way to make history but it seems history will have to wait because the government has managed, as usual, to get a ruling in its favour from a so-called independent body."  It is unclear for now at least how failures of U.S. policy toward Bahrain contributed to the outcome.

Update: Bahrain Watch has just released an article detailing Bahrain's PR contracts and relationships since the publication of the group's first "PR Watch" report in August 2012. Among the items noted in the press release is the following one of special relevant to this post:

US firm Mercury Public Affairs hired former US Ambassador to Bahrain Adam Ereli in September 2013. Shortly thereafter, Mercury’s Managing Director Morris Reid accompanied Ereli on a “listening tour” to Bahrain and other Middle East countries. Following his tour Ereli criticised the US government’s perceived failure to fully support the Bahraini government. Ereli reiterated his criticism in a recent interview. The Gulf Daily News reported that Reid had been “heavily involved in fostering trade links between the US and the Middle East, including Bahrain”. Reid previously served as a Managing Director for Washington DC PR firm BGR Group, which contracted with Bahrain’s government.

An "Embassygate" to Overshadow GCCgate in Bahrain

The publication of a damning new State Department Office of the Inspector General audit into the operations of U.S. Embassy Manama has sparked what Brian Dooley has coined "Embassygate."  The 48-page report, which may or may not have been written by Dr. Salah al-Bandar, addresses all aspects of the mission's operation, yet the main takeaway has been what the Washington Times gleefully refers to as the "poor leadership" of Ambassador Thomas Krajeski. No, this isn't an April Fool's joke, etc. etc.

Such a finding is of course welcome and one imagines vindicating news to many Bahrainis, not least those from the pro-government side who, largely on account of his role in the Shi'ization of Iraq while serving there as a post-war adviser to Paul Bremer in 2003, never accepted Krajeski's appointment.  Such suspicion was of course confirmed for skeptics when the U.S. Embassy continued its wavering position on the question of political reform vs. political stability in Bahrain following his arrival, which was taken as further proof of his preference for the Shi'a.

As indicated by Dooley's scandalous title, Washington at least seems abuzz about the report, which I suppose is appropriate coming as it does from an U.S. institution.  Yet, among other things, the U.S.-based reporters seem to have little understanding of the background of the story.  A Washington Post blog post, for instance, carries the headline, "Bahrain official wants U.S. ambassador out 'immediately.'"  So, who is this official, one asks? 

[W]hen Abdullatif al-Mahmood, head of the National Unity Assembly (a political group that’s part of a Sunni-oriented pro-government political federation) demands the “immediate” recall of U.S. Ambassador Tom Krajeski, Gulf Daily News reported Monday, attention perforce must be paid.

Here the writer would have done well to follow his own advice, and perforce pay attention (a) to the definition of the word "official"; and (b) to the dozens of other times that Al Mahmud and other pro-government Sunnis have called for the recall and/or forced expulsion of the ambassador, including when they attempted to pass parliamentary legislation to that effect.  Remember this back in June 2012? No? I guess the Washington Post Google-machine is broken.

More fundamentally, as Brian Dooley points out, the interesting part of the State Department's report is not limited to what it says about Krajeski and other embassy operations, but includes also -- even more so -- the very explicit statement of the State Department's understanding of the U.S.-Bahrain relationship.  The report tells, "Bahrain's ongoing political crisis has forced the U.S. Government to strive for an effective balance between military objectives, reform, and human rights."

Notice the order of those three priorities.

Finally, as with the larger Arab Spring, one gets the sense that in Bahrain the U.S.'s initial optimism that some positive political change might come out of the uprising has given way to a pragmatic desire to go back to the status quo ante.  This is on most obvious display in Egypt, where the Obama Administration has made a complete u-turn in supporting the military government. Yet even the President's recent trip to Saudi Arabia had something of the same air, a mending of diplomatic fences by reassuring the one Arab ally most resistant to change that change was indeed not coming.

As Gary Sick outlines in a recent NYT piece on the "Obama Doctrine," in the face of comittments and challenges elsewhere, most notably in Asia, the U.S. has decided upon a "more modest strategy" for the Middle East.  Thus, if Krajeski "has done little to plan for the future of the diplomatic mission, is providing poor leadership to staff members and has earned the ire of the local population," as summarized by Bahrain's favorite U.S. newspaper the Washington Times, then the State Department has only its own indecision and lack of vision to thank for it.

Change is coming, however.  Recent reports talk of the ill-health (and worse) of Saudi King 'Abdallah, who was taking oxygen in his meeting with Obama.  The king also recently took the unprecedented step of preemptively appointing the next crown prince, Muqrin, by royal decree, fueling speculation of an imminent abdication.  The decree is likely aimed at avoiding a possible succession dispute owing to the latter's non-tribal lineage (his mother was a Yemeni slave of Ibn Sa'ud), for which reason some senior royals oppose his selection.  Indeed, the very royal order appointing Muqrin reads,

[S]upporting Our selection and that of Our Crown Prince for Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz [was] an overwhelming majority of more than three-fourths of the members of the Pledge-Allegiance Commission.

In other words, as one G2K member points out, one fourth of the senior princes -- eight or nine out of thirty-five or so -- presumably with-held their allegiance to Muqrin.

In this context, it is no secret that the U.S. is said to favor Muhammad bin Nayf for the eventual post of king, which, if reports of his relative "pragmatism" vis-a-vis the Shi'a have any truth, could have interesting implications for Bahrain.  Best known as Saudi's counter-terrorism chief and head of the program to "re-educate" citizens returning from (and, in the case of AQAP at least, often heading back to) jihad, it seems reasonable to think that Muhammad bin Nayf might hold a different view of the relative threats posed to the kingdom and region of Shi'a empowerment and (Sunni) religious radicalization.  (It doesn't hurt, probably, that he was the target of the first-ever assassination attempt on a member of the Al Sa'ud, carried out by AQAP, back in 2009.)

Arguably, Muhammad bin Nayf's fingerprints already are appearing in Bahrain.  The country has, reluctantly it seems, followed the Saudi/Emirati line in declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.  (Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmad has spent the past few days backtracking on comments made during a recent trip to Pakistan that seemed to contradict this view.) Now, Bahrain has adopted the Saudi stance in giving its foreign fighters -- some of which have included the (now-dead) children of prominent Salafis -- two weeks to return to the country or face prosecution.  And, yes, there's even a "special counseling program to assist [them]" upon their return.

Of course, to the extent he is interested in reorienting security policy toward Sunni rather than Shi'a political movements, Muhammad bin Nayf will be up against the Gulf- and increasingly U.S.-based anti-Iranian establishment, for whom the notion of Iranian "destabilization" of the U.S.'s Gulf allies is used as primary evidence of why it cannot be trusted to uphold its end of a nuclear bargain. 

Update: This piece in Al Jazeera America equating the GCC Peninsula Shield intervention in Bahrain to Russia's annexation of the Crimea has the Bahrainis riled up. Qatar MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD!!#@!

Update 2: An op-ed by Emile Nakhleh cuts through the "spin" of "pro-regime talking heads" to put into context the State Department audit.

Bahrain and the GCCC: The Gulf Convenient Cooperation Council

The news of the week, not least here in Doha, is of course the rare public spat between GCC member states.  Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the Emirates have taken their Qatar ambassadors and gone home, which if it means three less vehicles on the roads here then I am all for it.

Notwithstanding the shock of Gulf ruling families' longstanding private dispute having been brought into the open, the move wasn't exactly unforeseen.  As early as February 18, for instance, the London-based Al-Arab published a report titled "Saudi Arabia running out of patience with Qatar and is planning to take punitive actions." It told not only of a possible suspension of diplomatic relations, but also other sanctions, including possible closure of Saudi airspace to Qatar and the suspension of trade agreements.

There is no shortage of analyses of the origins and meaning of the Gulf's newest (and this time entirely self-made) political crisis.  I will say only that, glowing post-Arab Spring statements of solidarity and impending Gulf Union aside, the six GCC states are -- gasp -- six different states guided by six different interpretations of national interest that often but not always coincide.  The Omanis are aloof, the Bahrainis do whatever the Saudis and their Abu Sa'afa oil tells them, the Kuwaitis don't really want to get involved beyond mediation, the Qataris don't need to take orders from the Saudis, and the Emiratis AHH MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD!~!!

If the Saudi-Bahraini-Emirati move was meant to put pressure on Qatar's new ruler by evoking fears among ordinary Qataris of being ostracized from the extended Gulf Arab tribe, then it would seem to have failed thus far.  For example, following an article published today in Al-Ayam by King Hamad's "Adviser for Scientific and Cultural Affairs" Muhammad Jabar al-Ansari, in which the latter writes that Qatar "will pay the price" (he also goes after Oman), the editor of the Qatari daily Al-Arab used his column today to call on the state to end its financial assistance to Bahrain as part of the so-called post-2011 "GCC Marshall Plan."

More generally, Qataris I've talked to seem moderately apprehensive but mostly annoyed.  Indeed, much more affected seem to be Saudi, Bahraini, and Emirati nationals living and working in Qatar, many of whom I've heard have been asked more or less politely by their respective governments to resign from their positions and return home. No collaboration with the enemy and all that. 

For those really interested in Qatar's possible strategic options going forward, see this piece by Simon Henderson.

More interesting from my perspective, however, is what the new political fault lines portend for Bahrain.  It is no secret that Saudi and Emirati displeasure with Qatar stems from its support of the Muslim Brotherhood, yet in Bahrain (and Kuwait; see Elizabeth Dickinson on this here) the group has long been not simply tolerated, but accepted as a legitimate political party.  More than that, it is an open secret (repeated even by the U.S. Embassy in Manama) that Bahrain's Muslim Brotherhood society al-Manbar al-Islami is bankrolled in large part by the Royal Court itself.

Remember when opponents of the Gulf Union expressed trepidation at the prospect that the political and cultural orientations of Saudi Arabia would, in the event of further integration, inevitably be imposed on the rest of the GCC member states?  Well, here we have an early example.  In Bahrain, instability born of the Muslim Brotherhood is decidedly not a domestic concern; indeed, until al-Wifaq's departure from parliament, the group represented, along with al-Asalah, one-half of the government's legislative majority whose job it was to block the opposition.  Will Bahrain now thank the society for its decade of service by declaring it an illegal "terrorist" organization?  If so, how long is popular enthusiasm for the idea of closer political ties with Saudi Arabia going to last among ordinary Bahraini Sunnis?

On the other hand, perhaps a new political witch hunt is just what the doctor ordered.  Yesterday, members of the Bahraini parliament, who since 2011 have gained a new lease on legislative life now that they need not concern themselves always with al-Wifaq, took the unprecedented step of voting to quiz the Minister of Finance, an Al Khalifa no less, for alleged financial irregularities.  Despite efforts by pro-government MPs to block the procedure, it seems that it will go forward, though a date has yet to be set.  And, in fact, those MPs that voted against the grilling are themselves being grilled (also here) on Bahrain's main Sunni (and nominally pro-government) forum.

Even more ironic than this, however, is the background to the quizzing.  From the Gulf News:

The Financial Audit Bureau report published in November detailed several financial abuses, prompting the Prime Minister Prince Khalifa Bin Salman Al Khalifa to order the formation of a committee to probe the allegations of financial irregularities.

The committee, chaired by Crown Prince and First Deputy Premier Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa, comprised the four deputy premiers. It sat with all ministers and addressed all the issues and loopholes mentioned in the report. The Follow-up Affairs Ministry, tasked with scrutinising the report, covered 462 cases outlined by the report and recommended referring 20 cases of non-compliance to the anti-corruption and economic and electronic security general directorate.

What this summary does not mention, however, is that the Crown Prince's unusually forceful follow-up to the National Audit Bureau report followed public outcry over the Alba corruption scandal that implicated -- wait for it -- the Prime Minister.  Thus, Khalifa bin Salman "appointed" the Crown Prince to a committee to investigate charges of corruption ... by him.

On an unrelated note, finally, I want to extend a congratulations to my colleague Toby Matthiesen for the recent publication of the Arabic version of his book, Sectarian Gulf, and also for his apparent recent acceptance into the Muslim Brotherhood. It's a shame that his Saudi-based publisher should have borne the brunt of his indiscretion, though.  Friends, don't let friends publish books on sectarian politics in Saudi Arabia:

Update: Forgot to include this.  Fred Wehrey outlines a "New U.S. Approach to Gulf Security," in which he proposes "mak[ing] Bahrain the focus of U.S. reform promotion in the Gulf."

Update 2: The Project on Middle East Democracy has sent a letter to Barack Obama "calling on him to discuss the political crisis in Bahrain during his upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia. The bipartisan letter, signed by 27 former government officials, regional experts, and security specialists, urged the Saudi leadership to play a more productive role in resolving the ongoing conflict by promoting genuine political reform in Bahrain."

Update 3: It seems that the campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood in Bahrain has already started--though it seems the government is so far content to let the UAE do the fighting. Last week Bahrain TV broadcast a program in which Dubai Police Chief Dhahi Khalfan accused Bahraini Al-Islah, the Muslim Brotherhood's social wing that shares a name with its beleaguered counterpart in the Emirates, of, among other things, "terrorism." Following the obligatory denial from al-Manbar al-Islami, the MB-affiliated writer for Akhbar al-Khaleej Ibrahim al-Shaykh has hit back, asking, "Fragmentation of the Sunni Street ... In Who's Interest?"

Tit for Tat in Bahrain

Only two months into the 2011 uprising, Hussein Ibish created something of a stir with an article for Foreign Policy titled, "Is Bahrain Creating a New Terrorist Threat?" Opposition activists in particular were offended by the suggestion that what was then an overwhelmingly peaceful protest movement could devolve into violence or terrorism.  Suffice it to say that Ibish likely avoided Twitter for a few days.

Of course, his question was not aimed at the integrity of demonstrators, but simply the political environment in Bahrain. "By leaving no room for peaceful dissent, " he summarized, "the Bahraini monarchy is creating the conditions for a violent revolt."

Such a thesis, I suspect, is no longer controversial, particularly following yesterday's sophisticated and premeditated attack on police in the village of Daih using a remotely-detonated bomb.  (Ugly opposition forum photos here.) While one can debate whether such an operation is best described as "terrorism" or "insurgency," given that the targets were police rather than civilians, still I think all can agree that Ibish's query is no longer rhetorical. (And we leave aside for the moment the question of Bahraini armed involvement in Syria, especially among Salafis.)

Of obvious concern is the nature of the bombing itself, which as the government has been quick to point out made use of exactly the sort of remote detonator confiscated in January on a boat apparently destined for Bahrain. At the time, the Ministry of Interior claimed that the detonators bore a "Made in Syria" label, though I have not seen this explicit connection made to yesterday's attack.

The following video, though dismissed by some as government fabrication, purports to show supporters of the group apparently responsible, the al-Ashtar Brigades, celebrating in Nuwaidrat the success of the deadly "operation" in Daih. The presence of small children certainly is not comforting.


Another unusual aspect of the case is the involvement of Emirati police personnel -- one of whom was among the dead -- in the anti-riot operation.  According to an Interior Ministry statement, the officer was in Bahrain "as part of the Amwaj Al Khaleej forces of the [GCC] Joint Security Agreement." He was not, then, part of the GCC's Peninsula Shield force, which the government continues to insist has never been involved in anti-demonstration operations (a claim supported by the BICI).

Yet the GCC joint security pact, agreed in 2012, is perhaps no less controversial.  Its terms still have not been released publicly, drawing anger and some protest among parliamentarians in Kuwait in particular.  Certainly, the presence of foreign police in Bahrain will come as an unwelcome surprise to many.

According to several people based in the Emirates with whom I've spoken, the case of the fallen UAE policeman has garnered national attention and given rise no little anti-Iranian sentiment.  Ruler of Dubai Sh. Muhammad bin Rashid has even taken to Twitter to eulogize "Tariq al-Shehi, Emirati father of four, ... martyred in Bahrain."

طارق الشحي .. إماراتي أب لأربعة أطفال .. شهيد الواجب الإماراتي في البحرين .. pic.twitter.com/K186dhjDN0
— HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) March 4, 2014

One wonders how this sentiment will translate into international relations.  On the one hand, one could imagine redoubled regional support for Bahrain so as to appear united in the face of ostensive Iranian-backed terrorism.  On the other hand, one might just as well expect the opposite reaction, on the part of the UAE in particular, which is to say to the Al Khalifa: you really need to get your house in order, as it's increasingly affecting the rest of us.

In this regard, the recent elevation of Muhammad bin Nayf in Saudi Arabia, now in charge of the all-important Syria portfolio, is of potential consequence.  The Interior Minister is said to be more pragmatic than his father with regard to Saudi countenance of potential Bahraini concessions to the opposition, and was even rumored to have been involved in an ultimately-abandoned plan to bring al-Wifaq representatives to discussions in Riyadh.

One really hopes that such potential sources of regional pressure or mediation pan out, because it's difficult to see how Bahrain's political-turned-armed conflict can be resolved internally.  Unless one believes that the state has so far held its punches in its dealing with the violent opposition, and that its heretofore inability to stamp out attacks such as yesterday's stems primarily from moderation in tactics, then it's not clear what else it can do to end the escalating insurgency. Arresting 'Ali Salman or 'Isa Qasim isn't going to change anything (for the better).

At the same time, despite official statements to the contrary, one has to imagine that the government views the violent street movement as almost entirely out of the sphere of al-Wifaq's influence. The state has therefore little incentive to enter into serious negotiations with the group, as it cannot credibly promise to deliver what the state wants, i.e. an end to precisely this sort of bloodshed and bad publicity.

Unfortunately, an escalating tit-for-tat contest between the government and radical opposition appears already well underway.

Update: The blog Jihadology offers a detailed look at Saraya al-Ashtar.