U.S. allows Saudis in Bahrain

The Saudi military’s march into Bahrain caught the U.S. “by surprise,” said London’s Al-Quds Al-Arabi in an editorial. It’s clear the Saudis did not notify Washington before sending 1,000 soldiers to help put down anti-government protests. And no wonder: There is “a huge disagreement between the two close allies.” The U.S. supports human rights and political reforms in Bahrain and elsewhere, while the Saudi monarchy stubbornly opposes even basic reforms at home. Then, too, Washington opposes Saudi interference because it fears a wider sectarian war. Most Bahrainis are Shiites, while the Bahraini royal family is Sunni—as are the Saudi troops. The U.S. is concerned that what looks like a Sunni invasion will inflame feelings in majority-Shiite Iran as well as among Shiites elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region.

Iran is already involved, said Muhammad Bin-Abd-al-Latif Al al-Shaykh in Saudi Arabia’s Al-Jazirah. What’s going on now in Bahrain “is the worst danger that faces the kingdom and all of the Gulf countries.” Iranian diplomats openly support insurrection by Shiites in Bahrain, with the clear goal of overthrowing Sunni regimes. The issue is not only a conflict between Sunnis and Shiites, as it seems to be on the surface, “but also, in its essence, it is a conflict between Arabs in Bahrain and the rest of the Gulf countries on one side and Persians in Iran on the other.”

That’s a lie, said Rasul Sana’irad in Iran’s Javan. The Zionist media of the West are promoting a “conspiracy theory” that there is a Shiite-Sunni split and that Iran is behind it. In truth, Bahrainis of both sects are rising up against their regime, which has long been a tool of America. The U.S. Fifth Fleet, after all, is based in Bahrain. That’s why America has “ordered” Saudi Arabia to put down the peaceful protests without regard to civilian life. Surely it’s no accident that the Saudi invasion came just a week after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates traveled to Bahrain. And now we see “the savage onslaught of foreign armed forces, under the covert command of American generals,” brutalizing the Bahraini people. These protesters, who are armed only with “their national flag and a few placards and slogans,” are being teargassed and even shot.

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The U.S. is at the least showing an “embarrassing double standard,” said Ömer Taspinar in Turkey’s Today’s Zaman. In Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia, Washington was quick to support the democratic aspirations of the people. “But when it comes to a country like Bahrain, where the U.S. has vast military and security interests at stake,” realpolitik suddenly takes over. “The rights of citizens are secondary.” Not only has the so-called superpower failed to shape events, it can’t even respond to the Arab uprisings with a consistent message.