The Saudi-Israeli-French Axis of Anxiety Over US-Iran Rapprochement

As US-Iran rapprochement inches toward at least partial consummation in Geneva, I wish to offer a few observations:

1)       The Iran nuclear weapons threat has always been a McGuffin, an excuse for various powers to advance an anti-Iran agenda.

2)      Chief among the usual suspects is, of course, Israel under PM Netanyahu.  If the Israeli government is able to spin Iran as a nuclear (almost) capable existential threat to Israel, then Israel can make an absolute claim on US sympathy, support, and protection.  If Iran returns to good relations with the United States, the US will arguably become less willing to bear the sizable political, diplomatic, and economic cost of deferring to Israel’s priorities—on the Palestinian question, on regional security, and its obstinate refusal to acknowledge its nuclear arsenal and integrate it into the international arms control regime.

3)      The other regional power most interested in thumping the Iran-threat drum is Saudi Arabia.  However, I would argue that the high-profile anti-Iran stance of the Kingdom (probably symbolized but not necessarily created by the notorious Prince Bandar) has little to do with the threat of “Iran hegemonism” (a canard frequently retailed in the big-name press) and a lot to do with Saudi Arabia’s decision to go pro-active against the popular democratic agitation expressed by the Arab Spring uprisings by supporting conservative Sunni theology and governance, not just in Shi’ite inflected countries like Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, but also in nations like Libya (where Saudi Arabia and its creature, the Gulf Co-Operation Council were the primary motive force in demanding intervention against Gaddafi) and Egypt.  It’s easy for Saudi Arabia to piggyback on the anti-Iran campaign promoted by the US and Israel and cite Iranian subversion as a pretext for the campaign of conservative Sunni rollback; if Iran is removed from the league table of existential enemies subverting the Sunni heartland, Saudi Arabia is left in the exposed position of protecting Wahhabi obscurantism against liberal democracy.  That’s not a happy place to be.

4)      Western observers have been rather surprised by France’s unapologetic sabotage of the Iran nuclear negotiations in Geneva at Israel's behest.  I saw some left-of-center complaining that France’s motivation was the greedy desire to muscle in on the lucrative Saudi arms business.  Perhaps, but I think the strategic nature of French involvement should be emphasized.  Recall that France’s traditional sphere of influence in the Middle East has been the Levant—that chunk of coastline that includes southern Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon.  France claims a paternal interest in the bloody, fascistic and pro-Israeli antics of the Lebanese Maronite community, a Catholic grouping whose origins date back to the Crusades and is perhaps the most conspicuous legacy of the French enthusiasm for meddling in the Middle East.  Before Syria blew up, France was at the center of an initiative to install Bashar al-Assad in the affections of the West.  Also, recall that the Libyan adventure was a creature of French enthusiasm; that France was also easily the most eager advocate of a US military strike on Syria after somebody crossed President Obama’s gas warfare red line.  With the United States displaying a desire to tilt toward Iran, if only a little bit, the Middle East jigsaw puzzle has been shaken up and France has the best potential of any Western power to shape and profit from the new alignment.  We can justifiably bitch about France carrying Israel’s water, but if the US pivots toward Asia, as it has promised, there is a strong case for redefining the Arab Middle East as a Mediterranean construct, with France playing the role of keystone (and Iran scolder-in-chief).  If Iran wants a European ally, well, Germany is probably there for the asking.

For the edification of China Matters readers, I offer two pieces from the archives below the fold.

First, a piece on the longstanding Saudi eagerness to push dissent into the sectarian pigeonhole, not only in Bahrain but in the entire Persian Gulf region. Hopefully, this provides a corrective to the rather ludicrous assertions of Iranian subversion, typified by allegations that the minority Assad regime is suicidally promoting sectarianism in Syria. The truth is, the Sunni affiliation of the Syrian majority is considered to be a dragon to be awakened in the service of conservative Saudi rollback against non-sectarian democracy, both in the kingdom and in the region.

Second, a discussion of the perennial question of whether Israel can pose a credible unilateral threat to Iran’s nuclear program with a military strike. When I originally wrote the post, it was considered unlikely that Saudi Arabia would provide refueling facilities to Israeli fighter bombers, and plausible that the US occupying forces in Iraq might provide the service. How things have changed. Under the current circumstances, I would say that Saudi Arabia’s enthusiasm for fighting to the last American has simply been transferred to Israel. I think that neither Israel nor Saudi Arabia have the stomach to bomb Iran and, perhaps, start a regional war without strong US backing of the sort that the Obama administration appears loathe to provide; hope I’m right. In any case, the real game is in Syria and western Iraq, regions that if not for that exasperating problem of al Qaeda blowback, would be viewed with unalloyed joy as fertile fields for conservative Sunni rollback and continued bloodshed, no matter what happens with Iran.

Shi’ites Increasingly Beyond the Sunni Pale in Bahrain

Great minds—or at least the editors and writers of Asia Times—think alike, in this case agreeing that there is something fundamentally creepy about the crackdown on Shi’a demonstrators in Bahrain.

Ever since the Peninsula Shield Force moved over the King Fahd Causeway, the Sunni hardliners have asserted that the Shi’a demonstrators are fundamentally disloyal, stirring up trouble on behalf of Tehran and, in the most extreme formulation, should “go back to Iran”.

I characterized the Bahrain action as part of a Saudi-led counter-revolution, meant to shift the framing from democratic agitation to the Iranian threat in order to give the authoritarian Sunni regimes greater freedom of action.

Pepe Escobar sounded the same theme in his AT article, The sweet smell of counter-revolution.

In particular, the Bahrain government has gone out of its way to depict the unrest as a “sectarian” conflict between Sunni and Shi’a, not a political dispute between the authoritarian government and a disenfranchised group.

No appeals to patriotism or patience or moderation; just a brutal, pervasive crackdown against Shi’a politicians, Shi’a media, Shi’a human rights activists...

It’s an odd formulation for Bahrain, where Shi’a account for more than 50% of the population and, indeed, were the original inhabitants of the island before the Sunni sheiks showed up.

On the other hand, if one looks at Bahrain as little more than another province of Saudi Arabia—the Gulf states’ version of Nevada, the one with the drinking and whoring and gambling concession (it came it at No. 8 in the world ranking of Sin Cities, according to one unscientific poll )—maybe it’s more feasible to depict the Shi’a as a detestable and disloyal minority afflicting the Arabian peninsula.

In any case, to me the effort to smear the Shi’a as a despised underclass for the purpose of constructing Sunni superiority reeks of racial politics in the South and anti-Jewish policies in Germany in the 1930s.

In these cases, the ostracization of a marginalized group was used to assert the supremacy of the dominant class, while claiming that the underclass was fundamentally disloyal and an existential threat to the system.

For the Gulf Co-operation Council bloc led by Saudi Arabia, it seems the anti-Shi’a line in Bahrain is part of an effort to set up a clear antithesis between the Gulf states and Iran.

Saudi Arabian outrage runs the full gamut from subversion by Republican Guard agent to Shi’a domination of the grocery trade.

Here’s a taste, from a fireeating backgrounder—Persian conspiracy seen to target GCC countries-- given to Arab Times on the occasion of a GCC summit devoted to trumpeting the Iranian threat:

Sources affirmed all the GCC countries is currently headed towards reducing the Iranian workforce, especially those employed in the distribution of food products, due to the pressure they have put on the Bahraini government by closing their shops and refusing to sell food items to people in line with the evil plan, which poses a grave threat to social security.

In my piece, China under pressure over Saudi rise, I quote from another Asia Times writer, Derek Henry Flood, titled Dangerous change rattles Bahrain.  He entered Bahrain during the crackdown and reported:

Asia Times Online spoke with Nabeel Rajab, the outspoken director of Bahrain's Center for Human Rights. Rajab candidly outlined the outbreak of gross human-rights violations directed against the island state's Shi'ite majority population in recent weeks.

"It is intimidation ... every Shi'ite [Muslim] is a target," Rajab said of the overall climate of fear gripping the kingdom. Rajab described in detail a campaign of a fear being waged not only in villages in the shadow of the once glittering capital but now in downtown Manama itself.

He said the appearance of graffiti supporting King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, desecration of traditional food offerings left outside husseiniyas (Shi'ite religious halls), and a plethora of humiliating checkpoints where being caught with any imagery related to the uprising or bans on photography can lead to a severe beating coupled with interrogation.
...
During a recent visit to a local hospital, Rajab noticed posters of King Hamad and other leading members of the al-Khalifa dynasty that low-level hospital workers of suspect allegiance were apparently urged to kiss in a display of coerced allegiance.
...
According to a Western diplomat who spoke to Asia Times Online, the active placement of foreign Sunni soldiers in Bahrain's military was an effort to firmly consolidate the kingdom's place as a Sunni power, however minor.
...
Rajab, who was detained on March 20 in a night raid that terrified his family, depicts what amounts to a policy of collective punishment being deployed against the monarchy's now possibly irreconcilable subjects along with an economic implosion that is shaking the nation to its core.

As I said, creepy.

Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s Rulers Goose-Step to the Brink of the Abyss

Update: Justin Gengler, a University of Michigan graduate student, did demographic work in Bahrain and is blogging on his findings at Religion and Politics in Bahrain.  According to Gengler, the government of Bahrain has been engaged in stealth naturalization of Sunni immigrants (and, if I read the article correctly, naturalization of Sunnis resident in the Saudi city of Dammam) in order to dilute the Shi'a majority.  He takes issue with the commonly reported 70/30 Shi'a/Sunni split that I used in this post.  According to his research, conducted in 2009, the population of Bahrain is now on the order of 58% Shi'a and 42% Sunni. CH, 4/5/11


While we are diverted by the opera-bouffe spectacle of the civil war in Libya’s desert, a genuine tragedy—and potential geopolitical trainwreck—is unfolding in Bahrain.

Those plucky demonstrators we saw occupying the Pearl Square roundabout in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, have been swept away by government security forces—together with the 300 foot monument at the roundabout, which came to symbolize the aspirations of the protesters and was therefore demolished by the government in a representative display of heavy-handedness.

The Bahraini government received an important assist from Saudi Arabia, which dispatched troops and tanks under a mutual security pact of the Gulf Co-Operation Council called Peninsula Shield.

The government has gone to great and dangerous lengths to paint the democratic aspirations of the peaceful, largely Shi’a demonstrators for democracy as a sectarian assault on the emirate backed by that Gulf boogeyman, Iran.

The repression has turned into an operation of conspicuous bigotry, brutality, and mendacity that does not bode well for the future of the emirate, political liberalization inside Saudi Arabia, or peaceful coexistence between Iran and the Gulf states.

In recent days, Bahrain has used live ammunition—shotguns—against demonstrators and blanketed Manama with checkpoints, some manned by personnel masked with sinister black balaclavas. After a group of Shia legislators resigned in protest, the government officially accepted their resignations—so they could strip the legislators of their immunity and render them liable to criminal charges. Main opposition newspaper—shut down. Only hospital in Manama—occupied by security forces so that wounded demonstrators can be apprehended, abused, and/or disappeared.

In classic Orwellian doublespeak, the government declared that the hospital had been “liberated”. “Liberating” the hospital apparently involved beating at least one male nurse senseless in the parking lot.

Beneath it all, a dangerous undercurrent of government fear and rage.

It looks like the Bahrain and Saudi security forces are utterly out of their depth. Their state of reference is pursuing and suppressing terrorists. By treating these peaceful, non-sectarian demonstrators as sectarian terrorists, they seem to be sowing the seeds of the emirate’s eventual destruction.

The expected outcome of systematic government-directed hatred would be ethnic cleansing, but there’s one problem with that. Shi’a are not a marginalized and easily purged minority; they are the majority, accounting for about 70% of the native population. The Sunni—who dominate the island in cooperation with their Saudi allies—are the minority. If one counts the large army of foreign workers in the emirate, the Sunni bosses account for less than 10% of the population.

No wonder the Sunni emir felt he needed some Saudi muscle.

The prognosis seems to be embittered Shi’a majority and paranoid Sunni rulers in Bahrain. Even under ordinary circumstances, Shi’a are inclined to a lively sense of grievance concerning historical and current Sunni persecution, raising the prospect of security problems for Saudi Arabia in handling its own Shi’a minority (about 15%) even after the stompings and beatings quiet things in Manama.

The big story in the Gulf appears to be that many of the governments, with weak to non-existent popular bases, vulnerability to democratic agitation, an inability to accommodate dissent (unless “accommodation” means bouncing a nightstick off somebody’s head and hauling them away), and an uncertain sense of where the Obama administration stands on the whole "democratic values vs. strategic interests" conundrum, are panicking and in need of a scapegoat to justify heavy-handed security measures that will otherwise alienate significant (ironically, significant moderate) sections of their populace.

The spooked regimes are justifying their disproportionate reaction by claiming the demonstrations are part of a seditious scheme sponsored by Iran and Hezbollah. A war of words has already broken out between Iran and Bahrain and Saudi Arabia over the issue. Turning the Gulf states’ rhetoric against them, Iran declared that Bahrain has forfeited its legitimacy, implying that Iran can do an R2P intervention on behalf of the embattled Shi’a of Bahrain like the humanitarian intervention the Gulf Co-operation Council incited in Libya.

The clownish nature of reporting on Bahrain was revealed when a leader declared he wanted the emirate to solve its problems without outside interference, Iranian or Saudi. This was of course headlined in the Saudi-owned al Arabiya as Bahrain’s Shiite opposition asks Iran not to meddle.

The seemingly suicidal line of framing the issue as Iran-fueled sectarian jealousy instead of legitimate democratic agitation was carried on in the article by a Bahraini official:

"We want to affirm to the world that we don't have a problem between the government and the opposition ... There is a clear sectarian problem in Bahrain. There is division within society," Sheikh Khaled said.

Don’t forget Kuwait, which is about to execute two Iranians and a Kuwaiti for spying, is expelling three Iranian diplomats from Kuwait, and has withdrawn its ambassador from Tehran.

An informative article on the Kuwait affair in Arab Times quotes an analyst in Dubai as saying that “the Kuwaiti government was ‘under huge pressure from Sunni MPs ... and the media to take action, not to let this go without proving their displeasure.’”

An April 3 article in Arab Times, Persian Conspiracy seen to target GCC countries, gives another hint of where things are going, along the line of runaway paranoia, scaremongering, and propaganda overreach, courtesy of that ubiquitous government mouthpiece, "Sources say":

KUWAIT CITY, April 3: The Iranian plan includes dangerous plots against the Gulf nations, not just Bahrain. Kuwait, in particular, is one of the targets and the spy network is only a tip of the iceberg, because the main objective is for the Iranian Naval Forces to invade some islands in the country and other Gulf nations under the pretext of protecting Shiites in Bahrain, say security sources in the Gulf.

Sources disclosed the Bahraini and Kuwaiti foreign ministers revealed the conspiracy uncovered by the security departments in both countries in the recently-concluded meeting of the GCC foreign ministers in Riyadh. After hearing the report, the GCC foreign ministers presented recommendations, which will be implemented soon, because the GCC nations are keen on revealing the truth to the international community.

Sources said the implementation of the Iranian plan started several months ago, claiming the chaos and conflicts in Bahrain are just the beginning of an attempt to disrupt peace in the Kingdom. Sources revealed the initial plan was for the unrest to continue for two to three weeks in order to give the Iranian, other Arab and international satellite stations enough time to extensively cover the massacre of Shiites in the country.  

Consider that plot to have the international media to "extensively cover the massacre of Shiites" pretty much foiled.


One doesn’t hear much about the brutal suppression of dissent in Bahrain in the Western media.

Ssome say the Libyan adventure was part of a plan to distract the West with a lovely little war against a crazy dictator so the journos wouldn’t be out covering the over-the-top suppression of a bona fide democracy movement by Saudi Arabia’s BFF (and host to Commander, United States Naval Forces Central Command (COMUSNAVCENT) / United States Fifth Fleet and 1500 US personnel) Bahrain.

Credit where credit is due: Newsmax, which often traffics in eye-rolling right-wing paranoia, had a good article on Bahrain by Ken Timmerman. When Newsmax has to carry the load for American news organizations, you know the situation is pretty grim.

Iran’s PressTV has tried to make Bahrain their CNN/Al Jazeera moment.

There is a sizable void to fill, since CNN has reported very little on Bahrain (four of their correspondents were detained and released only after signing "an undertaking not to exceed the limits of their mission"--they ostensibly entered Bahrain to report on "social media" but instead tried to report on the disturbances).

I didn't find any signs that the U.S. State Department stood up for America's press freedom agenda in this particular case.

Al Jazeera, owned by Qatar, has no interest in airing the dirty and/or bloody linen of the emir next door.

Bahraini hospitality toward news-gatherers of the Persian menace obviously has its limits.

Press TV's most recent report featured its Bahrain correspondent, Aris Roussinos, pushing a luggage cart through Heathrow Airport while giving an informative and thoughtful interview on the kinds of things that the Bahrain government was apparently not at all keen on him seeing as he spent a week in Bahrain evading the authorities and observing the crackdown.

If freedom-loving consumers of global media find Iranian reporting intolerable, however, here’s a 17-minute clip from an Australian investigative show called Dateline. It features nervy reporting by reporter Yaara Bou Melhem from inside Bahrain, and a stark picture of the hidden war that we’re not supposed to see.

The report can be viewed in its entirety at Dateline's website.

The reporting is deliberately low-key, a welcome contrast to the hyperventilating outrage needed to keep the humanitarian intervention balloon inflated in Libya (or the anti-Iranian jihad barreling along in the Gulf states, for that matter).

In one sequence, a Human Rights Watch representative directs the reporter’s attention to a crime scene that has come to symbolize the worst excesses of Bahrain’s riot police: the place where a young man, Hani Jumah, was beaten. Apparently, he was not a demonstrator; he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time as riot police swept the area. The camera pans on the bloodstained floor of a deserted construction site as the HRW staffer relates with forensic detachment: “We found fragments of his kneecap...we also found one of his teeth.” And you’re left to wonder: how does someone get beaten so severely a piece of his kneecap is dislodged from his body? The young man was taken to the hospital for treatment, then got disappeared from the hospital. His family was summoned to retrieve his body four days later.

I originally found the Dateline clip on the Facebook page of Bahrain’s leading human rights activist, Nabeel Rajab. He’s featured in the report, describing how 25 masked security personnel paid him a night visit to object to his activities with a three-hour session of interrogation and verbal and physical abuse.

A consistent theme is the persistent efforts of the regime and its personnel to characterize opposition as “sectarian”. One wounded protester described being beaten in the hospital (before he was transported to a police station for further beatings) and being told that he had ruined the country and would be “sent back to Iran.”

Nabeel’s site is mostly in Arabic. But if you open Google translator in a separate tab, you can cut and paste the text and a surprisingly good English translation floats onto the screen like a message from another world—which, if you think in terms of the media blackout in Bahrain, is exactly where it’s coming from.


Before and after pictures of the Pearl Monument from the Happy Arab blog.