realclearworld Newsletters: Mideast Memo
The 5th anniversary of the Arab Spring uprising in Bahrain was marked this week by small protests and pockets of disobedience -- a far cry from the 2011 protests that rattled the tiny island kingdom's ruling Al Khalifa family, and prompted neighboring Saudi Arabia to send in forces to help crush the movement.
These small, scattershot protests do, however, belie deeper systemic problems in the country. Although the crown pledged to implement a series of reforms following a 2011 inquiry commissioned by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, watchdog groups and activists insist that little has been done to remedy the ruling family's unfair treatment of the country's Shiite majority, and argue that the arbitrary arrest and torture of regime critics is on the rise. Police powers have been increased in recent months in the name of anti-terrorism, and criticism of the government can now carry a prison term of up to seven years.
This is by no accident. In pegging dissent to disloyalty, the kingdom's rulers can continue to alienate and persecute the country's restive Shiite majority, and in turn preserve the ruling Al Khalifa dynasty.
"The government arbitrarily arrests its critics, thereby generating more criticism, which in turn allows it to make more arbitrary arrests. The authorities have been caught in this simple feedback loop of action and reaction -- oppression and repression -- since the onset of the pro-democracy movement," argue Kate Kizer and Michael Payne of Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain.
Bahrain is a small island nation that has historically found itself at the whim of more powerful regional powers. Although the Al Khalifa family has ruled the country in one form or another since the late 18th century, the dynasty has long relied on those larger actors to help it maintain its grip on the country.
These days, Bahrain is almost wholly dependent upon the larger oil producers in the Gulf for its security and financial stability, and though Manama prides itself on its diverse and relatively transparent economy, the country is still highly susceptible to the ebb and flow of the global oil market. Lacking the oil reserves and sovereign wealth funds of its neighbors, Bahrain has had to resort to a different kind of patronage system than that found in other Gulf states.
"Rather than attempt to buy universal political support through financial patronage," writes Qatar University's Justin Gengler, "Bahrain has resorted instead to a more economical (and politically expedient) ruling strategy: to extend a disproportionate share of state largesse to a core Sunni tribal support base, whose members then have a direct economic-cum-political stake in defending against challenges to the system."
This divide and rule strategy, argues Gengler, allows the Al Khalifa family to stifle any hopes of a unified opposition to its rule, and weds the interests of the country's Sunni minority to its own survival.
If this strikes you as familiar, that's because it resembles a pattern currently playing out in conflicts across the entire Middle East. In Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, the lines of demarcation have taken on increasingly sectarian characteristics, as warring parties with varying allegiances to Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran clash in an ever-developing proxy war for influence.
As a Sunni minority power with a long and somewhat sordid relationship with Iran, the Bahraini monarchy has little choice but to mirror the regional strategy of its Saudi patrons. Thus it came as little surprise when, earlier this month, Bahrain expressed its interest in sending troops to war-torn Syria "in concert" with Saudi forces. While ostensibly intended to fight the Islamic State group, most experts agree that Riyadh's primary goal in Syria is to see President Bashar Assad, a close ally of Iran, removed from power.
In that sense, Bahraini foreign policy can be viewed as an extension of its domestic policy. The government has claimed on several occasions in recent years to have foiled Iranian sponsored or inspired terror plots, and its rulers are understandably sensitive to the suggestion that Bahrain is simply Iran's "fourteenth province."
Bahrain, moreover, is well-positioned to exploit the increasing Sunni-Shia divide in the region for years to come. As the home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet -- not to mention a growing naval presence by its onetime protector, Great Britain -- the Al Khalifa clan is not only anticipating a Middle East divided by sectarianism, it's banking on it.
All of this augurs badly for the future of the region. Such cynical policymaking may pay off for Bahrain's monarchy in the short-term, but it will no doubt contribute to years of negative consequences in Syria, Yemen, and the entire Middle East.
More on this:
How Bahrain Spawned Mideast Sectarianism -- Washington Post
US Turns Page on Bahrain's Crackdown -- Al-Monitor
The Gulf's New Social Contract -- Middle East Institute
US Has No "Plan B" for Mideast Naval Access -- Brookings Institution
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