Playing the Sectarian Card

Marc Lynch notes the fact that the Saudi intervention in Bahrain and today's crackdown are part of the regime's effort to frame the issues in Bahrain as a Sunni-Shi‘a rivalry rather than an issue of democratic reforms. Among his points:

The Bahraini regime responded not only with violent force, but also by encouraging a nasty sectarianism in order to divide the popular movement and to build domestic and regional support for a crackdown. Anti-Shi'a vituperation spread through the Bahraini public arena, including both broadcast media and increasingly divided social media networks. This sectarian framing also spread through the Arab media, particularly Saudi outlets. The sectarian frame resonated with the narratives laid in the dark days of the mid-2000s, when scenes of Iraqi civil war and Hezbollah's rise in Lebanon filled Arab television screens, pro-U.S. Arab leaders spread fears of a "Shi'a Crescent", and the Saudis encouraged anti-Shi'ism in order to build support for confronting Iranian influence.

While this strategy may work in the short term it's quite dangerous in the long term, with possible destabilizing effects not only in the Gulf states but in Iraq and Lebanon, where sectarian identities already run high. The demonstrators did not portray this as a sectarian issue; the official media did. Claiming that the demonstrators are agents of Iranian influence may drive the reform movement in that direction, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Playing the sectarian card may boost further support from conservative Sunni states, but in the long run I suspect it is playing with dynamite.

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Bad Day in Bahrain

Reports indicate bloody clashes in Bahrain, which combined with the progress of Qadhafi forces in Libya make this a bad day for revolutionary movements.

King Hamad's declaration of a three-month state of emergency in Bahrain gives the security forces the authorization to break up demonstrations, and the Saudi military presence (now clearly Saudi National Guard troops in battalion strength) and UAE police contingent reinforce the Bahraini forces. While the Saudis did announce one Saudi soldier had been killed in Bahrain, by most accounts I've seen, the Saudi forces are not being used directly against the demonstrators (though there have been a few allegations to the contrary).

The dilemmas for US policy are considerable, but the GCC move may not prove to be a wise one for King Hamad and the Al Khalifa generally. The move further polarizes Sunni-Shi‘a tensions in the Gulf, and by internztionalizing the issue, may actually invite the kind of Iranian meddling it is allegedly forestalling. It makes the usually cautious Saudis appear adventurous, but if it exacerbates tensions in Bahrain, it cou;ld mean the Saudis will be there a long time, as a necessary prop for the throne. And so King Hamad could find his country becoming a virtual Saudi protectorate.

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Seznec on the Saudi Intervention

Over at Foreign Policy's Middle East channel, Jean-François Seznec sees the Saudi intervention as a slap in the face for the US and a blow for the Khalifas of Bahrain.

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Forces are from Peninsula Shield, Bahrain Says

Bahrain is now saying that the GCC (but clearly, mainly Saudi) forces which have entered Bahrain are from the GCC's Peninsula Shield force. Peninsula Shield is the GCC's joint intervention force normally based in northeastern Saudi Arabia.

The US is treading cautiously, as I expected, expressing concern about the use of troop nd sending Jeffrey Feltman to Bahrain.

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The Distraction Factor

I suspect the "GCC" intervention in Bahrain — which apparently consists of about 1000 Saudi forcesa — while a direct response to the worsening of the situation yesterday, also is taking advantage of the fact that, in the wake of the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disasters, the world's media attention is focused elsewhere. While most major news networks deployed heavily to the Mideast in the past few months, the big names have moved on to Japan, while those remaining in the Mideast have to also cover both sides in the Libyan war. Yemeni forces have been using greater force with the protesters as well, in part because the whole world is now occupied elsewhere.

A more disturbing thought is that the world's distraction may not be the only reason governments are cracking down harder on the protests: despite the Arab League's unprecedented support for a No-Fly Zone in Libya, beleaguered autocrats may be emulating Qadhafi on the assumption that a hard line still works. I'm not sure that it does in the long run, but it may in the short run.

The US response is going to be interesting. A lot of Bahraini opposition figures have already noted that US Defense Secretary Gates was just there on Saturday. I don't believe it's cause and effect, but many in the region may well jump to that conclusion.

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GCC Troops Enter Bahrain; Protesters Charge "Occupation"

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) troops have moved into Bahrain to help keep order after a violent day of clashes yesterday. Other reports suggest that primarily Saudi troops are involved, in keeping with Saudi concerns over the mostly Shi‘ite protests against the Sunni government in Bahrain spreading to their own Eastern Province. While there may be a GCC fig leaf in place, I suspect we are essentially dealing with a Saudi intervention. The opposition is denouncing it as an "overt occupation," with all the negative semantic baggage the word "occupation" carries with it in the Arab world.

Unless we count Qadhafi's reliance on sub-Saharan African mercenaries in Libya, this marks the first overt cross-border intervention in the current wave of Arab protests. Last month I noted the concerns of the Saudis about events in Bahrain as a potential area of US-Saudi disagreement and friction; now we appear to have arrived at a critical moment.

It will be interesting to see the US reaction, which will require some diplomatic finesse, I suspect.

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Bahrain: the US Dilemma

What to say about Bahrain? Unlike Egypt or Tunisia, my knowledge of the country is superficial. But even more than in Egypt, the growing violence in the country and the bloody response of the authorities produces a dilemma for US policy. Not only is it unclear whether this will end well for US interests; it is unclear whether it can end well. The contradictory elements within the strategic gambles the US has made in the region, but particularly in the Gulf, may finally be coming home to roost, and the fact that Bahrain is in question involves not only critical US interests in the island nation itself (the base of the US Fifth Fleet), but also the elephant in the living room: Bahrain's neighbor at the other end of the King Fahd Causeway. And that goes to the heart of US policy in the Gulf. American sympathy for protesters demanding democracy, unarmed protesters being fired on with live ammunition, is in direct conflict with two countervailing US interests: diminishing Iranian influence on the Arab side of the Gulf, and maintaining the crucial relations with Saudi Arabia, the cornerstone of US Gulf security policy since the fall of the Shah 32 years ago this month.

This is not a partisan US issue. The Saudi relationship was a cornerstone of US policy under both Democratic and Republican Administrations. It still is. Dating as it does from the fact that it was American oil companies (as opposed to British elsewhere in the Gulf) that controlled the Saudi concessions, the Saudi relationship has been sound since FDR's day. That the Bush family, including both Bush Presidents, were close to the Saudis is well known, but it was that human rights crusader Jimmy Carter who, toasting the Shah not long before his toppling, praised Iran as one of the Gulf's twin pillars of stability. The Clinton and Obama Administrations have upheld the centrality of the Saudi relationship to US strategic interests in the Gulf.

But there may be no country in the world — and I explicitly include Israel here — where US and Saudi interests potentially might conflict more than in Bahrain. The Saudis backed Husni Mubarak to the end, but they've had disagreements with Egypt before, especially in the Nasser era. But for the Saudis, Bahrain is literally too close to home. It is both an outlet (where a Saudi can get a drink and enjoy other pleasures unavailable at home by driving across a causeway) and a potential blowback threat: if Bahrain's Shi‘ite majority were to take power from the Sunni monarchy, the substantial Shi‘ite population in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province might become restive, as they did in 1979 after the Iranian Revolution. And the Eastern Province is where the oil, the refineries, the pipeline heads, the oil ports, almost all of the industry, is based. The Saudis are likely to back the King of Bahrain to the hilt, but unless there is some progress towards dialogue and away from bloodshed in Bahrain, the US may face an insoluble dilemma.

If Bahrain's Shi‘ite majority were to actually control the country's policies (with or without continuing the Sunni monarchy), that would not automatically mean it would become pro-Iranian; while some Bahraini Shi‘ites are of Persian origin, the majority are Arab. But implacable Saudi hostility to a Shi‘ite-dominated Bahraini government might give a representative government nowhere else to turn. The Shi‘ite government of Iraq has its own problems. Forced to choose between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the US would have little choice but to side with the Saudis, however unpopular such a choice would be.

Finding some formula for negotiations and genuine liberalization that does not overtly threaten the Saudis' own security would be the ideal policy to pursue in Bahrain, but little of what has happened in the last 48 hours suggest any eagerness on the part of the King to do so. And he is no doubt hearing frequently from the neighbors across the causeway urging him to hang tough.

This will be a three-day holiday weekend in the US, with Monday off. I doubt if events will wait till Tuesday, but weekend posting will be limited to critical events.

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About That Vulture

Okay, by now you've heard about the Israeli spy vulture, since it's being commented upon all over the place. Ha'aretz broke the story in English with this story, and it's been picked up by the BBC and drawn a lot of attention. A vulture, tagged in Israel to track its migration, was found in Saudi Arabia with the Israeli tag on it, stirring local comment and suggestions it is part of a "Zionist plot."

Now it's true that many in the Arab world tend to blame Mossad for everything; some Egyptians are blaming the Alexandria church attack on Israel, and last month the Governor of Southern Sinai suggested that the Sharm al-Sheikh shark attacks might have been an Israeli plot. Such conspiracy theories are laughable and deplorable and silly, especially when a public official like an Egyptian governor are behind the allegations.

At first glance, the vulture story looks like a repeat of the shark story. As this story has been repeated, we're seeing such headlines as "Saudi Arabia Accuses Israel of Using Vultures for Spying," and reports that Saudi security has "arrested" the vulture.

But wait, let's go back to that original Ha'aretz story:

. . . residents and local reporters told Saudi Arabia's Al-Weeam newspaper that the matter seemed to be a "Zionist plot."

The accusations went viral, with hundreds of posts on Arabic-language websites and forums claiming that the "Zionists" had trained these birds for espionage.

"Residents and locsl reporters" told a local paper that seems to mostly be an online site that it looked like a Zionist plot, and "Arabic-language websites and forums" took up the theme. Where is the "Saudi Arabia Accuses Israel" in that? Internet forums in this counry are debating whether the recent bird kill in Arkansas is the result of aliens or the end times; Internet forums are not sovereign nations.

It seems to me that this is more likely a case of some rural folk catching the bird, turning it in, and telling a local reporter they suspected an Israeli plot. Then the forums pick it up. None of the major Saudi media have picked it up that I've seen, though I may have missed it. On the other hand, Arab News does have a report about the dangers of spreading unfounded rumors.

Are conspiracy theories and paranoid suspicions too widespread in the Arab world? Yes indeed. But unlike the shark story, which involved a senior government official, this one seems to be based on local speculation and blown way out of proportion by the media.

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