A Mideast Pearl Harbor: An Arabian Goldilocks War, Unrest in Bahrain
"We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it"Dwight D. Eisenhower
Today there seems to be a revived glimmer of hope for the war camp in the Gulf: all is not lost, the Texas Rangers may be on their way after all. Some (Persian) Gulf media and Saudi offshore newspapers are again talking of a surprise American attack on the mullah's Iran, a la Saddam Hussein (1980). It seems some reports in Israeli media, and perhaps Mr. Bush's press conference today have raised spirits (no eggnog here). In this Arabian Goldilocks scenario, being repeated in daily newspapers like alhayat and asharqalawsat again, the US is likely tricking the mullahs before attacking them- a sort of Pearl Harbor in reverse (imagine Ahmadinejad as FDR, talking of a day that will live in infamy). In the Middle East, like elsewhere but more so, if you repeat something long enough, it becomes an orthodoxy, and you may end up believing it. Nobody would dare deny or refute it, nobody wants to be a heretic.
Others now rest their hopes on the Israelis, but how can the Israelis cross all these Arab states in the way, all of them US military territory, to get to Iran? How can they stage more than one raid? And about that Goldilocks....well, maybe those locks are not so golden.
In Lebanon, a US Assistant Secretary of State visited political leaders for a second time this week to push for a resolution of the much postponed election of a president. While there, he called for all 'foreign powers' to stop intervening in Lebanon! Other Arab leaders and ambassadors also often call for all foreign powers to stop intervention in Lebanon, as do the French, the Syrians and the Iranians. So did the Israelis after they bombed the Shi'a (Shi'ite), and exclusively the Shi'a, districts of South Beirut in July 2006. They all call for foreign money to be kept out of the hands of one Lebanese faction or another, but not out of the hands of all the factions.
The new president of Lebanon may be selected this Saturday, or maybe not. It doesn't look good: both sides have dug in their heels, and both seem to need their spines periodically stiffened by those same outside foreign powers.
The president of Yemen, in power since 1978 (and he didn't need a Karl Rove either, just a few tanks), is reported to be giving up chewing the qat or khat. The narcotic leaf is a sort of national pastime of Yemen- no drinks and no NFL over there. He says he needs more time for his duties to his people. But this is according to the vast Saudi media, and a grain of salt is always wise to have handy here. And I thought President Salih got to take over in a coup because he was one of the few officers who did not chew the national dope. So, no more stoned president, but it won't be cold turkey: he said he will quit gradually. Yeah right.
In Bahrain, serious unrest has continued by protesters. There also seems to be a not so subtle power struggle between the young King Hamad al-Khalifa and his powerful, highly unpopular and totally Machiavellian uncle, the long-time Prime Minister Shaikh Salman. The PM is about as popular as the IRS in April, or the Green River Killer in the Northwest. My guess is that the king would love to get rid of his nasty uncle, retire him, and that it would be a popular act. But the old brute may be too powerful right now, especially within the security forces. The PM has clearly failed to ease tensions and reassure the populace: periods of unrest have accelerated and grown more violent in recent years. This newest unrest seems to be relatively widespread and has lasted over three days in the aftermath of the death of a young man by security forces. An official (government) medical report claims that the young man did not die as a result of violence. Of course not.
Bahrain has a large majority of Shi'as who reportedly form about 70% of the native population. The political and economic elites tend to be Sunnis. Lately many in opposition have claimed that the rulers have been giving out citizenship to desert bedouins from Saudi Arabia, as well as to others from Iraq and Jordan in an attempt to change the demographic mix and water down the Shi'a majority. This process of naturalization has led to the appearance of powerful pro-Jihadist Salafi groups in Bahrain for the first time. The country, which hosts a base for the US Fifth Fleet, has been forced to restrict its usually easy social life, including alcohol and some forms of public entertainment.
(BTW: former security men from Iraq and Jordan would probably make reliable new citizens, given their experiences in the arts of persuasion. There has been sporadic violence and protests in Bahrain since the 1990's when the opposition claimed that the state imported interrogators from Jordanian security to entertain members of the opposition).
This is not the first time population mixes have been played with for political goals in the Gulf. In another Gulf state people had also complained in the past that the government resorted to wholesale naturalization of conservative tribesmen from the Saudi regions during the 1960s, with the goal of weakening the politicized city folks, especially powerful secular pan-Arab opposition that dominated at that time. The local pan-Arab movement, led by the scions of some merchant families, and unlike its counterparts in other Arab countries, was elitist and myopic: it failed to recruit from outside its traditional narrow base centered within two old districts of the capital city. It was like an exclusive country club and did not see the reactionary religious/tribal tide, the proverbial peasants with pitchforks, coming. As a result, and with government help, the Islamists grew from a marginal and largely ignored cult movement into a powerful force. Today a Salafi-tribal coalition controls the National Assembly and the political agenda of the country.
A study by West Point's Combatting Terrorism Center reports that Saudis form the largest contingent (41%) of al Qaeda forces in Iraq, with the rest coming from several other Arab countries, including Libya, Syria, Algeria and Morocco. No casus belli there.
Cheers
mhg
m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com
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