Rattlesnake Ridge      

 
      BFF   

“Bahrain’s protest movement was per capita one of the largest anywhere in the region, with at one point more than half the population joining the demonstrations………. By far the greatest hole in the GCC’s resume remains its most direct and active intervention: Bahrain. The GCC’s, and particularly Saudi Arabia’s, role in helping the Bahraini regime to crush its political challengers in March and beyond succeeded in buying short-term survival. But it came at the cost of a generation of deep societal fragmentation, alienation and rage. The scope and sweep of the Bahraini regime’s repression of its population this year has long been reported by the media and by human rights NGOs, but now has been officially acknowledged and graphically detailed by the BICI report. The sectarianization of that conflict, as the minority Sunni regime moved to delegitimize a broad-based democratic opposition as sectarian Shia and Iranian pawns, poisoned not only Bahrain’s politics but also every other Gulf country with significant Shia populations including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In short, what happened in Bahrain was the kind of short-term success which carries the seeds of long-term instability……..”

Yes but the rulers do not give a fig (or a rat’s culo) about “societal fragmentation”.  They want to remain not only in power, but to remain in control of the resources which they can then continue to loot. As for longer term, they can’t see below their bloated gluttonous belies.
Cheers
mhg


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