Decoding Obama's Bahrain
puzzle By M K Bhadrakumar
The address by United States President
Barack Obama on Thursday regarding the Middle East
situation was a mixed bag of certainties and
ambiguities, although Obama did bring US regional
policy frankly and squarely behind the Arab
Spring.
On the other hand, the speech was
a last-ditch attempt to define a new narrative and
a desperate gamble to regain the initiative. There
is indeed a fundamental contradiction insofar as
any political order that is born out of the Arab
Spring, which is representative or sensitive to
popular Arab opinion will, by definition, find it
difficult to forge strategic cooperation with
America.
Cairo has opted for normalization
of relations with Iran; begun whittling down
security cooperation with Israel; and in a stunning
move reconciled the
Palestinian groups and is probably encouraging
them to seek United Nations recognition for
Palestinian statehood. Washington is barely
coping.
Unsurprisingly, Obama was highly
selective when he contemplated changes in the
Middle East; he just couldn't bring himself to
mention Saudi Arabia. He didn't know what to say.
The great puzzle is Bahrain. Obama said with
certainty:
Bahrain is a longstanding partner,
and we are committed to its security. We
recognize that Iran has tried to take advantage
of the turmoil there, and that the Bahraini
government has a legitimate interest in the rule
of law.
Nevertheless, we have insisted
both publicly and privately that mass arrests
and brute forced are at odds with the universal
rights of Bahrain's citizens, and we will - and
such steps will not make legitimate calls for
reform go away. The only way forward is for the
government and opposition to engage in a
dialogue, and you can't have a real dialogue
when parts of the peaceful opposition are in
jail. [Applause] The government must create the
conditions for dialogue, and the opposition must
participate to forge a just future for all
Bahrainis.
This can be viewed almost
as a reprimand of King Hamad Khalifa, a close
ally, and a rejection of the violent crackdown on
Bahraini protesters. Obama would know that changes
in Bahrain would inevitably affect Saudi Arabia.
Yet, he never mentioned Saudi Arabia and the US is
also "quietly expanding on a vast scale" the US's
defense ties with Saudi Arabia.
An
Associated Press analysis with a Washington
dateline on the same day as Obama spoke reported a
"historic expansion of a 66-year-old relationship
that is built on America's oil appetite, sustained
by Saudi reliance on US military reach".
Apart from the recent US$60 billion
Saudi-US arms deal, AP reports on a top-secret US
project to develop an elite 35,000-strong Saudi
force trained and equipped by the US under the
supervision of Central Command specifically geared
to protect Saudi oil infrastructure and other
sensitive establishments.
Equally,
something appears very odd in what Obama said
about Bahrain since he continued in the same
breath to draw a parallel with Iraq, of all
places: "Indeed, one of the broader lessons to be
drawn from this period is that sectarian divides
need not lead to conflict. In Iraq, we see the
promise of a multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian
democracy. The Iraqi people have rejected the
perils of political violence in favor of a
democratic process."
Najaf versus Qom
Obama's Bahrain puzzle needs decoding. On
second thoughts, Bahrain and Iraq have
similarities. In both places, democracy is all
about Shi'ite empowerment. Clearly, the US pins
hopes on the "reformist" crown prince of Bahrain
to accommodate the demands of the Shi'ite
opposition, while the prime minister, who is
apparently a hardliner, is setting the pace for
repression - and he is supported by the Saudis.
The US sees the alchemy of Shi'ite
empowerment in Bahrain very differently from the
Saudis. For one thing, Bahraini Shi'ite protesters
aren't (so far) "anti-American" and the
continuance of the US base for its Fifth Fleet is
not in jeopardy. Again, Sheikh Issa Qassem, the
spiritual leader of Bahraini Shi'ites, is prepared
to settle for a constitutional monarchy and is not
demanding an overthrow of the Sunni monarchy.
What Bahraini Shi'ites are demanding is
power-sharing rather than a capture of power.
More important, the US doesn't subscribe
to the conspiracy theory that the Iranians are
going to be the "winners" if the Shi'ite majority
gets a share of power in Manama. Iran, too, seems
to realize its limitations. On the other hand,
Bahraini Shi'ites do not want an Iran-type
clerical regime - Velayat e-Faqih.
From the religious perspective, too, they
draw inspiration from Najaf in Iraq rather than
Qom in Iran. This last point becomes extremely
important for comprehending the thinking behind
Obama's remarks on Bahrain.
It is often
overlooked that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the
spiritual leader of Iraqi Shi'ites based in Najaf,
has consistently avoided supporting strict
conceptual interpretation of Velayat-e
Faqih. He is neither openly dismissive of some
of the underlying doctrinal ideas nor does he
explicitly offer any substantive affirmation of
the Faqih framework. In short, Sistani
remains reluctant about getting involved in
politics, although as prominent US scholar and
academic Vali Nasr (who, incidentally, advises
Obama on the Muslim Middle East) points out, he
"never tried to promote rivalry" between his
doctrinal ideas and those of the Iranian clerics
in Qom.
What it all adds up to is that a
friendly Bahraini Shi'ite nation could turn out to
be a strategic asset for the US to build bridges
to Najaf - and that holds immense significance for
the overall configuration of American influence in
Iraqi politics, which today Iran (vainly) tries to
dominate.
Any redefining of Shi'ite
empowerment away from the traditional stranglehold
of the clerical establishment (and the doctrine of
Velayat-e Faqih) and the shepherding of
Bahraini Shi'ites toward a genuinely democratic,
"secular" way of life holds interesting
geopolitical possibilities for US regional
policies, as such a progression would be
completely antithetical to what the Iranian regime
(or Hezbollah in Lebanon) represents.
That
is to say, the cumulative impact of "democratic"
Shi'ite empowerment in Iraq and Bahrain could at
some point come to a "fusion" that poses an
ideological headache for the Islamic regime in
Iran. Thus, reform in Bahrain holds the potential
to kick-start an engrossing shadow play within the
world of Shi'ism in the Muslim Middle East. If
Bahrain can be finessed to follow the "secular"
democratic route of Shi'ite empowerment and be
conjoined with Iraq politically, it may hasten the
demand for democratic change within Iran itself.
A schism erupts ... Iran's
clerics, who have their political antennae out,
may be sensing trouble and that may partly explain
the grim power struggle that has erupted between
the religious establishment and President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad (who is incidentally the first
non-cleric to occupy the position of head of state
since the 1979 revolution). Conventional wisdom so
far has been that Supreme Leader Ali Khameini
solidly backed Ahmadinejad and that the president
himself was the representative of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
The
thesis has been, finally, blown away by the past
few weeks of dramatic happenings in Tehran. We are
witnessing instead the Iranian religious
establishment circling its wagons. The Majlis
(parliament), top IRGC commanders, Friday Prayer
speakers and even the Guardian Council - important
organs of the religious establishment - are
queuing up to criticize or put down Ahmadinejad.
They are taunting the president -
inflicting scores of cuts on him that are bound to
bleed at some point. The political stakes are
high. It was none other than Khamenei who gave the
green signal for the assault on Ahmadinejad when
he took the decision last month to reinstate
Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi (a senior
cleric who was previously the supreme leader's
adviser to the Basij, Iran's equivalent of a
"people's liberation army"), who was sacked by the
president.
Interestingly, this was
preceded by a smear campaign for months in Tehran
that Ahmadinejad was systematically promoting
"non-clerical" figures into positions of power and
was pushing a secret plan to have another
non-cleric succeed him as president in the next
election in 2013. Furthermore, that he was working
on a master plan to marginalize the religious
establishment.
Ahmadinejad is a staunch
follower of Ali Shariati, the brilliant non-cleric
Iranian revolutionary and sociologist who
propagated "red Shi'ism" in the tumultuous years
leading up to the revolution in 1979 - a curious
amalgam of Marxism, Third Worldism and Islamic
puritanism - which opposed the unrevolutionary
"black Shi'ism" or Savafid Shi'ism of the Iranian
religious establishment. Shariati was trained in
Sorbonne in France and was a friend of philosopher
and author Jean-Paul Sartre; he was murdered in
1975 and in the event the clerics hijacked the
revolution from its Marxian moorings.
The
latest political controversy in Tehran over
control of the Oil Ministry is also related to the
broader power struggle, as powerful elites within
the corrupt and decadent religious establishment
have traditionally controlled and enjoyed this
milk cow of the Iranian economy in league with the
bazaar, and they cannot brook Ahmadinejad's move
to assume direct charge of the portfolio.
The Guardian Council, the constitutional
watchdog dominated by the religious establishment,
stepped in last week to censure Ahmadinejad's
executive decision to take charge of the Oil
Ministry.
Again, Iran's administrative
court, which is under the thumb of the religious
establishment, has come up with a case against the
head of the presidential administration, Hamid
Baqaei, who is the right-hand man of Ahmadinejad
and has the rank of vice president, banning him
from working in state bodies for the next four
years.
On Sunday, in a dramatic
development, Ahmadinejad's key aide Kazem
Kiapasha, who was touted in recent months as the
president's favorite candidate for the 2013
election, was arrested.
Unshuttered
balcony According to the Tehran grapevine,
many people loyal to Ahmadinejad, including his
close confidant Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei (who is
also the president's chief of staff), have been
taken in for questioning and websites allied to
them have been blocked.
Mashaei and Baqaei
have been summoned for questioning by Iran's
intelligence services. Hardliners and conservative
clergy have been campaigning in recent months that
Ahmadinejad has a master plan to weaken the
Velayat-e Faqih system. Evidently, the
hydra-headed Iranian religious establishment is
imposing itself on an assertive non-clerical head
of state.
This schism within the Iranian
regime and the enveloping revolutionary fervor
imparted by the Arab Spring could stir up the
moribund democratic movement within Iran. The
Iranian religious establishment is not a pushover
and it will fight tooth and nail to defend its
untrammeled political power. But then, the Iranian
religious establishment is also lately a divided
house.
This is where democratic reforms in
Bahrain leading to Shi'ite empowerment could act
as a catalyst for an "implosion" within Iran.
Actually, Obama has been surprisingly mild
in his rhetoric on Iran - as if he were keenly
following events there. Such an approach makes
sense, as any manifest attempt to muddy the waters
of the power struggle in Iran could be
counter-productive.
The growing disarray
within the Iranian regime and contradictions in
Iran's political economy are best exploited if
Bahrain emerges at this juncture as another
democratic society (like Iraq) where Shi'ites are
empowered but have opted for a modern,
forward-looking society seeking integration with
the West in the present era of globalization.
Obama's approach is diametrically opposite
the Manichean vision of the Saudi establishment,
which is frantically rallying the Sunni Arab
world. Obama distanced himself more than once from
the Saudi tirade against Iran stoking the fires of
Sunni sectarian passions.
He would rather
prise open the 30-year-old house that Iran's
Shi'ite clerics built by climbing through an
unshuttered balcony window that Bahraini Shi'ites
could hold open for him in the dead of the night.
Will it work? The hope is audacious since
there is the real risk that persecuted Shi'ites in
Saudi Arabia will also clamor for the empowerment
that the Bahraini Shi'ites may secure under
Obama's watch. If that happens, a reluctant Obama
may come face to face with the imperative of
reforms in Saudi Arabia, which would be the mother
of all reforms.
Ambassador M K
Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the
Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included
the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and
Turkey.
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