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.