Storm Clouds in the Gulf

Bahrain is only a small island in the middle of the Persian Gulf, but the internal convulsions underway there may be a precursor to the undermining of the U.S. presence and interests in the region.

Two salient facts place Bahrain’s fate front and center to American inter, and Bahrain is a key financial center for the Gulf.

Shiite Muslims make up the majority--at least 60%--of Bahrain’s Arab population of 300,000 and are growing volatile. Since their conquest by the present Sunni Muslim ruling family in the late 18th century, the Shiites of Bahrain have been a distinctly oppressed and second-class element alongside the (minority) Sunni establishment. Their quest for political voice and equality has led to numerous outbreaks of rioting and insurrection over the years. The violence has been largely nonlethal but recently has escalated and even begun to take on incipient anti-Western overtones. The ruling family has so far handled the situation poorly and now is seeking Washington’s support for its crackdown policies. Such support would be unwise.

The Shiites’ primary demand is for restoration of parliamentary government, which they had during an enlightened experiment in the 1970s. But that was abrogated by the ruling family in 1975 when it tried to impose on the parliament a set of security laws to deal summarily with nascent labor movements. Participatory government has not been seen since. Not only does the ruling family refuse to countenance liberalization, but Saudi Arabia, overlord to Bahrain, has been even more adamant about crushing any hint of “dangerous” democratization. The Saudis’ fear of democracy anywhere in the region is matched by their worries about their own downtrodden Shiite community, which is less than 10% of the population but inhabits the sensitive eastern oil-producing regions and is closely linked by blood and family ties to the Bahraini Shiites. Disorders in one area could easily spread to the other.

This all might seem rather distant, but in fact it poses a serious and urgent dilemma for the U.S.. The Bahrain ruling family has chosen an inflexible response to the ongoing disturbances and declares the unrest to be the work of a handful of malcontents acting at the behest of Iran. The most the regime can point to is general Iranian sympathy for regional Shiites and the routine training of Bahraini Shiite clerics in the religious schools of Qom, which the government knows is not a significant source of the activism in Bahrain. A few agitators may have come from Lebanon, but local grievances are widespread. Furthermore, there is little evidence of material Iranian support for the Bahraini Shiites--they do not even possess handguns, something a revolutionary-minded regime in Iran would surely be able to bootleg onto the island if it wished to. The Shiites further recognize that the Iranian involvement could be the kiss of death for their own cause. But the mention of Iran is a sure-fire hot button to push in Washington whenever regimes in the region face domestic unrest that they wish to stifle.

The Shiites are realistic and make no call for the removal of U.S. naval headquarters. If legitimate discontent continues to grow on Bahrain, however, the United States itself inevitably will become a target. And the failure to resolve the problem soon will radicalize the situation down the road. The expulsion of the U.S. military presence from Bahrain would represent a sensational gain for Iran in the Gulf and directly affect other disaffected and oppressed Shiite communities in the region--perceived as victims of Sunni regimes supported by the U.S. for the sake of oil and geopolitics.

It would be prudent for Bahrain’s ruling family to defuse the situation by recognizing the legitimate grievances and the need for greater power-sharing, as has occurred in Kuwait. It is not only prudent, it is long overdue.