By Johan Galtung
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 28 2014 (IPS)

More senseless bombing of Muslims, more defeats for the United States-West, more ISIS-type movements, more West-Islam polarisation. Any way out?

“ISIS [Islamic State in Iraq-Syria] Appeals to a Longing for the Caliphate”, writes Farhang Jahanpour in an IPS column. For the Ottoman Caliphate with the Sultan as Caliph – the Shadow of God on Earth – after the 1516-17 victories all over until the collapse of both Empire and Caliphate in 1922, at the hands of the allies England-France-Russia.

Johan Galtung

Imagine the collapse of the Vatican, not Catholic Christianity, at the hands of somebody, Protestant or Orthodox Christians, meaning Anglo-Americans or Russians, or Muslims. A centre in this world for the transition to the next, headed by a Pope, an emanation of God in Heaven. Imagine it gone.

And imagine that they who had brought about the collapse had a tendency to bomb, invade,  conquer, dominate Catholic countries, one after the other, like after the two [George] Bush wars in Afghanistan-Iraq, five Obama wars in Pakistan-Yemen-Somalia-Libya-Syria and “special operations”.

Would we not predict a longing for the Vatican, and an extreme hatred of the perpetrators? Fortunately, it did not happen.

But it happened in the Middle East, leaving a trauma fuelled by killing hundreds of thousands. The Sykes-Picot_Agreement between Britain and France of 16 May 1916 led to the collapse, with their four well-known colonies, the less known promise of Istanbul to Russia, and the 1917 Balfour Declaration offering parts of Arab lands as “national home for the Jewish people”. Jahanpour cites Winston Churchill as “selling one piece of real estate, not theirs, to two peoples at the same time”.“Imagine the collapse of the Vatican, not Catholic Christianity, at the hands of somebody, Protestant or Orthodox Christians, meaning Anglo-Americans or Russians, or Muslims. A centre in this world for the transition to the next, headed by a Pope, an emanation of God in Heaven. Imagine it gone”

The Middle East colonies fought the West through military coups for independence; Turkish leader Kemal Atatürk was a model. The second liberation is militant Islam-Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Salvation Front in Algiers and so on against secular military dictatorships.

The West prefers military order against history.

The longing cannot be stopped. ISIS is only one expression, and exceedingly brutal. But, damage and destruction by U.S. President Barack Obama and allies will be followed by a dozen ISIS from 1.6 billion Muslims in 57 countries.

A little military politicking today, some “training” here, fighting there, bombing all over, are only ripples on a groundswell. This will end with a Sunni caliphate sooner or later. And, the lost caliphate they are longing for had no Israel, only a “national home”. This is behind some of the U.S.-West despair. Any solution?

The way out is cease-fire and negotiation, under United Nations auspices, with full Security Council backing. To gain time, switch to a defensive military strategy, defending Baghdad, the Kurds, the Shia and others in Syria and Iraq.

The historical-cultural-political position of ISIS and its successors is strong.

The West cannot offer withdrawal in return for anything because it has already officially withdrawn. The West, however, can offer reconciliation, both in the sense of clearing the past and opening the future.

Known in the United States as “apologism”, a difficult policy to pursue. But for once the onus of Sykes-Picot is not on the United States, but on Britain and France.

Russia dropped out after the 1917 revolution, but revealed the plot.

Bombing, an atrocity, will lead to more ISIS atrocities. A conciliatory West might change that. An international commission could work on Sykes-Picot and its aftermath, and open the book with compensation on it.

Above all, future cooperation. The West, and here the United States enters, could make Israel return the West Bank, except for small cantons, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital – or else! – sparing the horrible long-lasting Arab-Israeli warfare.

This would be decency, sanity, rationality; the question is whether the West possesses these qualities. The prognosis is dim.

There is the Anglo-American self-image as infallible, a gift to humanity, a little rough at times civilising the die-hards, but not weak.

If not an apology, at least they could wish to undo their own policies in the region since, say, 1967. No sign of that.

So much for the willingness. Does the West have the ability? Does it know how to reconcile?

After Portugal and England conquering the East China-East Africa sea lane around 1500, ultimately establishing themselves in Macao and Hong Kong, after the First and Second Opium wars of 1839-1860 in China, ending with Anglo-French forces burning the Imperial Palace in Beijing, did Britain use the “hand over” of Hong Kong to reflect on the past?

Not a word from Prince Charles.

China could have flattened those two colonies – but did not. Given that Islam has retaliation among its values, the West may be in for a lot.

Le Nouvel Observateur lists “groupes terroristes islamistes” in the world: Iraq-Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Libya, Algeria, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines, Uzbekistan, Chechenya.

The groups, named, grew out of similar local circumstances. Imagine that they increasingly share that longing for a caliphate; the Ottoman Empire covered much more than the Middle East, way into Africa and Asia. And more groups are coming. Invincible.

Imagine that Turkey itself shares that dream, maybe hoping to play a major role (in the past, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu a superb academic, a specialist on the Empire.)

Could that be the reason for Turkey not really joining, as it seems, this anti-ISIS crusade?

The West should be realistic, not “realist”. Switch to rationality. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

The Kurdish flag is flying high in the wind from the rooftop of an old brick house inside Kirkuk’s millennia-old citadel, as Rashid – a stern-looking man sitting behind a machine gun – monitors the surroundings.

Rashid commands a small unit of a dozen fighters, members of the Kurdish armed forces – known as the Peshmerga – deployed to the oil-rich province since June 13.

On June 12, the Iraqi army evacuated its positions in Kirkuk province after its troops had earlier conceded control of the country’s second largest city, Mosul, in the face of advancing Sunni militant groups led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).

“Since we have been deployed here things have changed,” says Rashid, a Peshmerga for 25 years, with a sense of pride. “It’s safer now and people can go out and do their daily business.”By appearing to favour Shia armed elements, Kurds might risk alienating the local Sunni Arabs and potentially push them toward cooperation with ISIS and other militant Sunni factions.

However, although the deployment of thousands of Peshmerga troops has in fact brought relative calm to the city so far, trouble appears to be brewing.

Rich in natural resources such as oil and home to a mixed population of Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and Christians, Kirkuk is no stranger to conflict. It has been at the heart of decades of armed and political struggles between the Kurds and successive Iraqi governments.

Since the Kurdish takeover there, armed Shia groups have been flexing their muscles, a move that has infuriated the considerable Sunni Arab population in the province and could be a potentially destabilising factor, while insurgent activity by Sunni militants continues in some parts of the province and has left tens of casualties behind so far.

The local office of the influential Shia cleric Muqtada Sadr organised a military parade on June 21 in which hundreds of armed Shia men walked through the streets in downtown Kirkuk.

“The parade was meant to send a couple of messages. One was a message of reassurance to all Iraqis that there are soldiers to defend all segments of the people,” says Sheikh Raad al-Sakhri, the local representative of Sadr, sitting on the floor of his well-protected Khazal al-Tamimi mosque. “And the other was a message to terrorists that there is another army ready to fight for the sake of the country if the [official] military [forces] fall short of their duties.”

Al-Sakhri might claim his men will protect everyone, but the Sunni Arabs here are not convinced.

At the peak of Iraq’s sectarian strife in 2006 and 2007, Sadr’s Mahdi Army was seen as responsible for summary execution of thousands of Sunnis in the capital Baghdad and other areas.

“A question for the local government [in Kirkuk] is will it allow Sunni Arabs to carry out a similar (military) parade,” says Massoud Zangana, a former human rights activist turned businessman, who alleges he has been threatened with death by Shia armed groups.  “The number of Sunni Arabs is more than the Shia in this city.”

Zangana owns a television channel called Taghyir – Arabic for ‘Change’ – that broadcasts from Amman, Jordan, which some Iraqis refer to as the “Revolution Channel” for its steady coverage of Sunni protests two years ago and of the current fight between Sunni militants and the Iraqi army.

Local media are also buzzing with reports that the central government in Baghdad has delivered a couple of arms’ shipments via the city’s airport to Shia militiamen here.

Officials in Kirkuk or Baghdad have not confirmed those reports.

“Giving weapons to official security forces is okay but providing arms to one side to fight the others is wrong,” says Mohammed Khalil Joburi, a Sunni Arab member of the Kirkuk Provincial Council, wishing that the news of arm deliveries is not true.

The local government in Kirkuk is run by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a major Kurdish party that has close relationship with Iran. Many in the local media speculate that the PUK-controlled administration in Kirkuk had possibly agreed to the military display by Shia groups under pressure from Iraq’s powerful eastern neighbour, Iran.

Despite the appearance of relative calm, tensions are high in Kirkuk and security forces are visible throughout the city.

By appearing to favour Shia armed elements, Kurds might risk alienating the local Sunni Arabs and potentially push them toward cooperation with ISIS and other militant Sunni factions.

In Bashir, a village in southern Kirkuk populated by Shia Turkmen, local Shia militias and Kurdish Peshmerga forces have clashed with ISIS and other Sunni militant groups.

In the western part of the province around Hawija district, the Kurdish Peshmerga have repeatedly fought against ISIS and its local allies.

Kirkuk has not been spared suicide attacks, a trademark of ISIS and jihadist groups.

On June 25, a suicide attack killed at least five people and injured around two dozen others.

The challenge before Kurds who effectively rule most parts of the province is to prevent a spillover of violence and sectarian divisions in other parts of the country into Kirkuk.

Kurds view Kirkuk as part of their homeland, Kurdistan, and hope they can maintain their current military and political dominance in the city.

In the latest Iraqi parliamentary elections in April, Kurds won eight out of the 12 parliamentary seats allocated to the province.

Kirkuk’s vast oil fields have the capacity to produce around half a million barrels of oil per day and Kurds consider Kirkuk central to their aspirations to build an independent state.

Massoud Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Region, recently said that he will deploy as many forces as needed to maintain Kurdish control of the contested province. 

On June 30, Barzani asked the head of United Nations Mission to Iraq to organise a referendum in which Kirkuk’s residents can decide whether they want to be part of the Kurdistan Region.

The official territory of the Kurdistan Region includes Erbil, Sulaimaniya and Dohuk provinces.

But after the Iraqi military’s recent defeat at the hand of ISIS-led Sunni militant groups, Kurds have expanded their control over large parts of the neighbouring Kirkuk, Nineveh, Diyala and Salahaddin provinces.

Now in charge of Kirkuk, the challenge for Kurds is walking a fine line between Shia and Sunni, Arab and Turkmen populations to maintain order in the medium and long term.

In a deeply-divided city facing the threat of jihadists close by, Kirkuk’s Shia and Sunni leaders who spoke to IPS appeared to have no objection to Peshmerga’s control of Kirkuk, at least in the short term.

In the heart of the city’s historic citadel, Rashid and his young men are well aware of the difficult task lying ahead. “We are here to protect all groups … We don’t wish to fight but this area is surrounded by ISIS and all sorts of other groups,” says Rashid.

“We don’t know what their goal is, but we are on alert here.”

The lengthy prison sentences handed down to 50 Shia activists last week and the refusal of Bahraini courts to hear their allegations of torture once again confirm the regime’s continued repression of the opposition.

Amnesty International in a statement this week decried the unfair trials and sentencing of these activists and the inability of the defence lawyers to present witnesses or to challenge the authorities’ politically motivated charges. Court decisions seem to be pre-ordained regardless of the facts."The King's hands-off approach shows he is ruling over a fractious country that is heading toward the abyss."

Many of those convicted were allegedly tortured in prison before trial as “terrorists”, an accusation which the Al Khalifa regime hurls at any Bahraini who criticises regime brutality.

In a recent interview with Al Monitor, the Bahraini foreign minister defended his government’s “serious” commitment to the so-called national reconciliation dialogue and accused the opposition of undermining it.  He said the dialogue is “there to stay,” but just this week the government suspended the dialogue until Oct. 30.

From the very beginning, the government-organised dialogue has been a public relations stunt to buy time and perhaps mollify critical Western governments. It failed because it mostly focused on process, not substance.

Unfortunately for Bahrainis, the deafening silence in Washington and London about human rights abuses has signaled to the Bahraini regime that other regional trouble spots, especially Syria, Iran, and Egypt, at least for the moment trump Bahrain.

The regime continues to encourage the radical Sunni Salafi elements within the ruling family to pursue an unwavering apartheid policy against the majority and remains impervious to international criticism.

Apart from the convictions, the government crackdown has included banning non-governmental organisations from contacting foreign funding sources or diplomats without government approval, arresting Khalil Marzuq, a leading member of al-Wifaq party, depriving a number of Bahrainis of citizenship, and pursuing an anti-Shia sectarian agenda.  These actions have incurred international condemnation and have prompted the opposition in mid-September to pull out of the dialogue.

Restrictions on NGOs finally prompted the U.S. State Department to issue a statement Sep. 19 expressing “concern” about the Bahraini government’s recent restrictions on civil society groups and their ability to freely communicate “with foreign governments and international organizations.”

European governments, spearheaded by Switzerland, privately and publicly have repeatedly condemned human rights abuses in Bahrain.  The recent human rights declaration signed by 47 states is another sign of growing international impatience with the autocratic, intolerant, and exclusive nature of the Bahraini regime.

In recent media interviews, the Bahraini foreign minister criticised U.S. President Barack Obama for lumping Bahrain with Iraq and Syria as regimes that have promoted sectarianism.

“We are different from the other two states, and this is hard to take,” the foreign minister said in an interview with the Saudi-owned Al-Hayat newspaper.

Some media reports have discussed the serious divisions within the ruling family’s two major ideological factions. These include the supposedly pro-reform faction led by the King’s son and Crown Prince Salman; the other is the more conservative and anti-reform faction led by the “Khawalids” within the military senior hierarchy and the Royal Court.

The King views himself as a “constitutional monarch” above the political fray and as an arbiter of family ideological feuds.  This hands-off approach, however, shows he is ruling over a fractious country that is heading toward the abyss.

By replacing his ambassador in Washington, the relatively moderate Bahraini Jewish woman Huda Nunu, with a military officer closely associated with the Khawalids, the King’s “in your face” appointment in effect is telling Washington that his hard-line policies against the opposition would continue.

Whatever game the King is playing is destined to fail in the long run.  He cannot possibly envision a stable and peaceful Bahrain if he continues to allow an extremist Sunni anti-Shia faction within his family to run the country with total disregard of the majority. This is a recipe for violence and chaos. The game is up; the King cannot pretend all is well in his tiny “constitutional monarchy”.

Much like the white extremist faction within the U.S. Republican Party that is bent on disregarding the law of the land and the democratic procedures to effect political change, the extremist Khawalid faction under the auspices of the prime minister is committed to keeping Al Khalifa in power at all costs, even at the risk of tearing the country apart.

If the King is still committed to genuine reform, he should shed his “constitutional monarch” posture and act decisively and courageously.  He could immediately take the following 10 steps:

• Remove the prime minister, appoint the crown prince or another distinguished Bahraini as acting prime minister, and call for free national elections.
• Appoint a respected and representative commission to initiate genuine national reconciliation dialogue involving all segments of society.
• Stop illegal arrests and sham trials.
• Void the 22 amendments to the law that the lower house of the Bahraini parliament passed recently, which, among other things, call for stripping Bahrainis of their citizenship if they criticise Al Khalifa, whether on Twitter or in person.
• Remove all vestiges of employment discrimination against the Shia, especially in defense and the security services.
• Implement the key recommendations of the Bassiouni Commission report.
• Make new appointments in the Royal Court and the top echelons of the military.
• Review the court system and revisit the contractual appointments of expatriate judges.
• Void the recent sentences and arrests of peaceful opposition protesters.
• Announce the above steps in a nationally televised address to the nation.

The ruling family has waged a sophisticated public relations campaign through traditional means and on the new social media and has hired publicists to present a gentle picture of the government’s abysmal human rights record. The campaign has failed.

Western governments, human rights groups, the European Union, and Western media have not really bought into Al Khalifa’s PR blitz. The Washington Post’s recent editorial condemning Marzuq’s arrest is a telling example of how Western media has come to view Bahrain’s repressive regime.

A recent twist in the Bahraini regime’s propaganda has been to argue that the “Bahraini file” is linked to the “Syrian file” and to the “Iranian file.” Therefore, the Bahraini domestic conflict could not be resolved until Syria is taken care of or until a U.S.-Iran rapprochement is achieved. The regime has been trying feverishly but unsuccessfully to sell this argument to regional and international players and to the Bahraini opposition.

No such linkage exists; grievances in Bahrain go back decades.  A resolution of the Syrian crisis, whether by war or diplomacy, or the possible reintegration of Iran in the international community should not prevent the ruling family from implementing genuine reforms and ending the sate of emergency and Sunni apartheid policies against the Shia majority.

Emile Nakhleh is former Director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at CIA and author of “A Necessary Engagement:  Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World and Bahrain:  Political Development in a Modernizing Society.”

On Aug. 14, the 42^nd anniversary of Bahrain’s independence from Britain, an online group called Tarmarod (“rebellion” in Arabic) officially joined Bahrain’s democracy movement that began in February 2011.

A montage of the Bahraini Uprising created from images available on the Wikimedia Commons.

Tamarod’s name and inspiration came from the Egyptian movement that led to the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In its first statement, issued on Jul. 4, Tamarod said it wants “a homeland that embraces all its citizens, an Arab and independent Bahrain where the people can have greater decision-making power within their country.

“This movement is a ‘rebellion’ against the injustice and illegitimacy of a regime that has exerted its power through the exploitation of the country’s natural resources and draconian legislation that limits human rights and judges its citizens based on their ethnicities,” the statement said.

Countering the rebellion

Ahead of Aug. 14, which Bahrain’s government anticipated as a day of protest, high-level official statements describing Tamarod as a sham version of the Egyptian movement were released.

The Ministry of Interior warned against responding to Tamarod’s calls of protest and civil disobedience, and King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifah issued a decree ordering the National Assembly to convene and, for the first time in Bahrain’s history, toughen anti-terrorism laws.

Bahrain’s broad definition of terrorism can be applied to the act of burning tires, blocking streets, the use of Molotov cocktails and protesting in the capital, Manama, which the government argues can damage the country’s economy.

Bahrain’s National Assembly came up with 22 recommendations on Jul. 28, including the banning of all demonstrations and gatherings in Manama and the withdrawal of citizenship from “perpetrators of terrorist acts” and “instigators”, all of which were issued as law by the king on Aug. 1.

In the run-up to Aug. 14, at least five online activists, bloggers, photographers and other members of citizen media were arrested, according to the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR).

More than 70 websites and online forums that the government alleges promote terrorism were also blocked.

Tamarod called for peaceful but escalating civil disobedience by closing stores and refraining from shopping or fueling vehicles. The movement also called on people to temporarily halt financial transactions, including the paying of bills, and to switch off all lights at sunset.

Protest spots were also declared in nine different locations, for people to march to on foot – not as groups but individually – without any slogans, banners, flags or other such manifestations, and by avoiding all confrontation with security forces.

Bahrain’s security forces were meanwhile implementing their response plan.

Since Aug. 12, an intensive security presence was felt throughout the capital, villages and other areas. This included checkpoints and the arresting of activists.

Bahrain’s pro-government media also campaigned against Tamarod by calling for the withdrawal of citizenship of oppositional political and religious leaders.

Bahrain’s unique struggle

In comparison to the uprisings that began in other Arab or African countries in 2011, Bahrain’s protest movement was not a direct response to economic disadvantages faced by its people. The protests have been aimed at achieving freedom and self-determination.

Bahrain’s Shiite majority has long said that it is not given the same chances as the Sunni minority, such as jobs assigned by the Sunni royal family to top tier positions in commerce and governance. Shiite Muslims are also not allowed to join the island-nation’s security forces or army.

Bahrain’s authorities claim the opposition movement is aided by Iran and aims to remove the monarchy through terrorism.

The monarchy has responded by cracking down on demonstrators through hundreds of arrests recorded by international rights-monitoring organisations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, as well as systematic torture, the killing of demonstrators and the removal of alleged protestors from their jobs.

Bahrain’s citizen media

Bahrain’s government has gone to lengths to prevent foreign media from visiting the country since April 2011. International media were also largely barred from entering the country close to Aug. 14, all of which has resulted in citizens working to disseminate information.

Bahrainis were mostly impeded from protesting on Aug. 14 or on the days after because of the heavy police presence on the streets. Local and international media were meanwhile focused on the bloody events in Egypt following the killing of hundreds of pro-Muslim Brotherhood protestors that also took place on that day.

Two-and-a-half years after Bahrain’s uprising began, international media attention also remains scarce and the support provided to the monarchy by neighbouring countries such as Saudi Arabia has not contributed to positive change for either side.

Not even the results of a Bahraini independent inquiry, which expose substantial human rights violations, have spurred meaningful reform.

But Bahrainis are still showing their resolve to achieve their rights and live in a country where the rule of law is implemented through democracy and not by a tribe.

This is one reason why the Tamarod movement has established itself in Manama – despite the authorities’ attempts to quell protests there – and promised to continue its peaceful “rebellion”.

Nazeeha Saeed is the Bahrain correspondent for Radio Monte Carlo and France 24. Her coverage of Bahrain’s 2011 uprising led to her detention by Bahraini police. She now works closely with international organisations to defend freedom of the media in Bahrain and for the rights of both Bahraini and non-Bahraini journalists.

Thousands rally in Bahrain in March 2011. Credit: Suad Hamada/IPS

By Emile Nakhleh
WASHINGTON, Aug 1 2013 (IPS)

The special session of the Bahraini National Assembly held on Sunday Jul. 28 was a spectacle of venom, a display of vulgarity, and an unabashed nod to increased dictatorship.

Calling the Shia “dogs”, as one parliamentarian said during the session, which King Hamad convened, the Al-Khalifa have thrown away any hope for national reconciliation and dialogue.

The 22 recommendations approved during the session aimed at giving the regime pseudo-legal tools to quash dissent and violate human and civil rights with impunity. All in the name of fighting “terrorism”.

Watching a video of some of the speeches during the session, one is saddened by how low official political discourse has become. Students of Bahrain yearn for the days when parliamentary debaters were civil and when Shia and Sunni parliamentarians engaged in thoughtful, rational, and tolerant debates despite their political or ideological differences.

In the early 1970s when the Constituent Assembly debated the draft constitution, Bahrainis followed the speeches by their elected and appointed representatives with much respect and hope for the future of a modern, tolerant, and civil society.

Such parliamentarians as Rasul al-Jishi, Jasim Murad, Ali Saleh, Abd al-Aziz Shamlan, Ali Sayyar, Isa Qasim, Qasim Fakhro, and others made their countrymen proud with the quality of debate that characterised Bahrain’s first ever elected parliament.

Even such ministers as Muhammad bin Mubarak al-Khalifa, Ali Fakhro, and Yusif Shirawi participated in those parliamentary debates and worked jointly with elected members to chart a more hopeful future for all the people of Bahrain.

As I sat through those parliamentary sessions in 1973 and followed the lengthy discussions on a myriad of constitutional amendments, I envisioned a democratically prosperous Bahrain for years to come. The National Assembly, however, was dissolved two years later, and the constitution was suspended. Al-Khalifa ruled by decree ever since.

The parliamentary special session last Sunday showed a divisive, intolerant, and fractured country that is rapidly descending into chaos. It’s as if civility, rationality, and moderation have become relics from the past.

King Hamad and the Crown Prince welcomed the recommendations, and the powerful prime minister urged his ministers to implement them immediately; in fact, he has threatened to fire any minister who slows their implementation.

According to media reports, the recommendations were prepared before the meeting and were disseminated to the media a few minutes after the session ended. They were not even debated meaningfully or rationally during the session.

The regime’s fear that Bahrainis would have their own “tamarud” (rebellion) civil disobedience movement to confront the regime on Aug. 14, Bahrain’s actual independence day, drove the timing of the session. The Bahraini opposition hopes to emulate the Egyptian “tamarud”, which indirectly led to Morsi’s removal.

Like other autocratic regimes, whether under Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt or Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Al-Khalifa justified the draconian recommendations against all forms of opposition and peaceful dissent in the name of fighting “terrorism” and incitement of “all forms of violence” (Recommendation #3). The regime will likely use these recommendations to ban all peaceful demonstrations and protests.

The regime is prepared, according to Recommendation #2, to revoke the citizenship of Bahraini citizens “who carry out terrorist crimes and those who instigate terrorism”. The regime defines a terrorist as any Bahraini who is suspected of being a dissident or actively advocating genuine reforms. In fact, Recommendation #6 bans “sit-ins, rallies and gatherings in the capital Manama”.

The regime does not seem perturbed by the fact that citizenship revocation violates international legal norms and the Bahraini constitution. In fact, this might be a sinister way for the Sunni al-Khalifa to alter the demographics of the country by depriving the Shia dissidents of citizenship.

Viewing the entire protest movement through the security prism, as the recommendations imply, the regime seems bent on escalating its crackdown against peaceful protest and freedoms of speech and assembly, according to the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.

Under Recommendation #7, the country could soon be ruled under martial law or “National Safety”, as the regime euphemistically calls it.

The recommendations have put the country on a sectarian collision course, have dealt a major blow to peaceful dissent and civil rights, and have raised serious questions in Washington about Al-Khalifa’s commitment to genuine reform.

In a direct rebuke to U.S. Ambassador Thomas Krajeski, Recommendation #11 requests “that all ambassadors to Bahrain to not interfere in the kingdom’s domestic affairs.”

Some die-hard Sunni parliamentarians, with the support of the Royal Court, have urged the regime to expel Ambassador Krajeski from Bahrain, claiming he has been meeting with pro-democracy Shia dissidents. Others have threatened his personal safety.

Still others, with tacit regime support, are hoping the ambassador would be transferred out of Bahrain, much like what happened to political officer Ludovic Hood in May 2011.

At the time, according to the “Religion and Politics in Bahrain” blog, pro-regime Sunni activists demanded Hood’s removal because they claimed he offered “Krispy Kreme doughnuts to demonstrators who had gathered outside the American Embassy” to protest perceived U.S. support for Al-Khalifa.

Now pro-regime Sunni activists are feverishly campaigning against the U.S. ambassador’s public support for human rights and genuine reform in Bahrain. The recommendation curtailing diplomatic activities in the country is squarely aimed at Ambassador Krajeski.

According to Bahrain Mirror, some have advocated banning him from appearing on state media and in pro-regime newspapers, even if the subject he is discussing is gourmet cooking, one of the ambassador’s hobbies!

The anti-Shia and anti-reform underlying theme of the recommendations is a naked display of tribal family autocracy, which Al-Khalifa are determined to preserve at any cost, including tearing the society apart. Adopting these recommendations reflects the regime’s nervousness about the ever-increasing precarious nature of their rule and the unstoppable demands for justice, dignity, and equality.

According to a recently leaked audio recording, Crown Prince Salman was quoted as saying, “The current situation is unsustainable, and the policy we are pursuing cannot continue. People are getting tired, and conditions could worsen any moment. Bigger dangers are threatening our society, and the future is becoming more precarious.”

Washington and other Western capitals should work diligently to disabuse the king and the prime minister of the notion that “securitisation” is the answer to Bahrain’s domestic ills. Engaging with the public on the future of Bahrain, including the Shia majority and the pro-democracy youth movement, is the only way to bring the country back from the brink.

Washington should make it clear to Al-Khalifa that media attacks and threats against Ambassador Krajeski should stop. Whipping the flames of hatred against the U.S. embassy to preserve the regime’s dictatorial rule is a dangerous game, which Al-Khalifa cannot afford to engage in.

As a first and immediate step, King Hamad should muzzle the hotheads in his Royal Court and in the prime minister’s office. In the meantime, the U.S. should initiate serious discussions on how and when to move the Fifth Fleet out of Bahrain to a neighbouring country or over the horizon.

Emile Nakhleh, a former Senior U.S. Intelligence Service Officer, is a Research Professor at the University of New Mexico and author of “A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World and Bahrain: Political Development in a Modernizing Society”.

By continuing its repressive policies and refusing to engage civil society and moderate political groups in meaningful dialogue for genuine reform, the Khalifa family has squandered its legitimate right to rule Bahrain. King Hamad could still salvage his rule, but he would need to act boldly by taking the following steps.

First, remove the prime minister from his position and appoint the crown prince as the country’s first interim prime minister. This step is critical if the king hopes to convince the United States and the European Union of the sincerity of his reform agenda and to heal the rift with his people.

Second, empower the new prime minister to meet with civil society organisations and moderate political groups and societies for the purpose of initiating a process of genuine comprehensive political and social reform that is not driven by sectarianism.

Third, rescind all recent legislation or draft legislation that restricts the lawful activities of non-governmental organisations, and work with international human rights organisations to design legislation that guarantees and protects associational life in the country.

Fourth, set a date certain for parliamentary elections, to which international observers are invited and in which political groups and non-governmental organisations can participate freely and openly. Furthermore, he should empower the newly elected parliament to begin drafting a constitution in which the principles of inclusion and tolerance are enshrined as a matter of law, not a benevolent gift of the king.

Fifth, give a televised speech to the country explaining the steps he intends to take. He should tell his people that respect for human rights applies to all Bahrainis, regardless of religious or sectarian affiliation. The speech should be the first step toward national reconciliation and sectarian peace.

Had Prince Salman carried with him a specific plan for genuine reform on his recent visit to Washington, American policymakers would have been more forthcoming in their support of Al-Khalifa. Washington and European capitals would more enthusiastically support a power shift from Khalifa to Salman if it were accompanied by a larger and more comprehensive reform agenda.

Saudi and other Gulf Arab leaders also would welcome a power transfer in Bahrain. Though unprecedented, the power transfer from father to son that is currently underway in Qatar could be a blueprint for Bahrain. Power shift in that country would of course involve shifting power from the great uncle perennial Prime Minister Khalifa to the reform-minded crown prince.

Saudi and Omani leaders are becoming uneasy about continued instability in Bahrain. As they search for a way out of the Syrian bloody civil war, they would not want to be sidetracked by the precarious situation in Bahrain.

The June 2013 Human Rights Watch report on the Bahraini government’s policy to “interfere, restrict, and control” associational life in the country and the recent cancellation of the visit by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture to Bahrain belie the government’s defence of its so-called reform agenda and its commitment to inclusion and equality.

King Hamad has pursued two flawed policy approaches, which he had hoped would buy him time. Like other Sunni leaders in the region, he has used the violence in Syria and Hizballah’s military support for Assad as proof of the rise of the so-called Shia Crescent over the region. Hamad has frequently pointed to Iran’s central role in directing the perceived Shia resurgence on the Arab side of the Gulf.

Al-Khalifa’s drumbeat has been that Iran and Arab Shia groups are working to undermine Sunni rule. By extension, Shia demands for political reforms, justice and equality in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere are part and parcel of Iran’s grand regional design

Hizballah’s military support of Syria has nothing to do with the Shia-Sunni sectarian divide. It has everything to do with Hizballah’s belief that a breakup of the Iran-Syria-Hizballah axis through the fall of the Assad regime would weaken Hizballah’s standing and power position considerably.

Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s strategic gamble of publicly supporting Assad could still prove disastrous for Hizballah because sooner or later Assad will fall. When this happens, Hizballah’s so-called resistance brand would be discredited.

The other, and albeit more silly, political game that King Hamad has been playing is to create a wedge between the Americans and the British in their dealings with Bahrain.

According to Justin Gengler, a Bahraini watcher and blogger, King Hamad is fostering a deeply personal relationship with the British ambassador in Bahrain and is actively promoting British involvement in Bahrain and the Gulf.

At the same time, the king has tolerated Sunni rabid attacks on the U.S. ambassador in the country. Some Sunni clerics have even demanded that Washington remove him from his post for allegedly cavorting with al-Wifaq party and other Bahraini Shia opposition groups.

On a recent visit to London, King Hamad went so far as to invite Britain to return to “East of Suez” and re-establish its hegemony and, presumably, friendly relations with Gulf tribal rulers. In addition, he granted Bahraini citizenship to over 200 UK citizens for their service to Al-Khalifa rule, according to press reports.

As a small country autocrat playing with major powers, King Hamad has displayed a shallow understanding of the dynamics of regional power configurations that the two traditional partners on both sides of the Atlantic have pursued in the Gulf region for decades.

America’s long-term strategic interests in the Persian Gulf and beyond and Bahrain’s security dependency on the United States are too significant to be affected by the king’s power play.

When last year I argued in a column in the Financial Times in favour of removing the Fifth Fleet from Bahrain, the Bahraini prime minister was very disturbed and demanded that the Times publish a counter column, which his spokesman drafted. The Times published the piece the following day.

If and when Washington decides to move the Fifth Fleet out of Bahrain, such a decision would be driven by strategic and economic considerations that go beyond King Hamad’s personal relationship with the U.S. and UK ambassadors there.

If King Hamad is seriously interested in preserving his rule in a politically reformed Bahrain in which all citizens can enjoy equal opportunity, access to employment, and respect under the law, he should work jointly with the British and the Americans to save Bahrain. Otherwise, policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic will become more and more convinced that Al-Khalifa have lost their legitimacy to rule.

Emile Nakhleh is a former senior intelligence officer and author of “A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World” and “Bahrain: Political Development in a Modernizing Society”.

In 2011 in Bahrain, riot police reportedly tried to disperse protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets. Credit: Al Jazeera English/CC by 2.0

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jun 20 2013 (IPS)

Human rights groups here are calling for the United States and the European Union (EU) to exert more pressure on Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, to seriously engage its opposition and end its repression of its majority Shi’a population.

“Bahrain claims to be on a path of political reform, but it is heading altogether in the wrong direction,” according to Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), which issued an 87-page report Thursday on how the kingdom is cracking down harder on independent civil society organisations (CSOs).

“The new draft law on association – just like the continued imprisonment of opposition activists – shows all too clearly how the ruling family is rolling back genuine reform on so many fronts,” he added."Bahrain claims to be on a path of political reform, but it is heading altogether in the wrong direction."
-- Joe Stork

Brian Dooley, a specialist in the Gulf states for Human Rights First (HRF), said that the Obama administration “is realising, if belatedly, that it’s been had” by Bahrain’s promises of reform. “It needs to figure out what to do instead.”

“There’s been a slow, but unmistakable increase in repression. The current situation can’t go on year after year, because there’s a real danger it will explode into something much worse,” he said.

The new HRW report, as well renewed appeals for Washington to take a tougher stance, comes ten days before EU High Commissioner and several EU commissioners are to meet their Gulf Cooperation Council counterparts in Bahrain.

“They should convey beforehand their expectation that key political prisoners will be released in advance of the summit,” said Stork.

The report also comes two weeks after Obama and other senior U.S. officials met in Washington with visiting Crown Prince and First Deputy Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa.

The crown prince has been Washington’s favourite in the ruling al-Khalifa family due to the perception that he favours at least limited democratic reform that would give the Shi’a community, which makes up about 70 percent of the island-state’s population, some share of power. The al-Khalifas, who have ruled Bahrain for more than two centuries, are Sunni Muslims.

In a bid to increase the crown prince’s leverage back home, the administration announced during his previous visit here 13 months ago that it would deliver some weapons from a previously agreed 53-million-dollar arms package. The package was held up by lawmakers in Congress concerned about human rights abuses committed during Bahraini security forces’ fierce, Saudi-backed crackdown on opposition during the 2011 “Arab Spring”.

The crown prince, however, has failed to deliver. Despite the February launch of a much-heralded national dialogue, repression has actually increased, according to human rights monitors and independent analysts, who noted that no new arms announcements were made during this year’s visit, during which Obama nonetheless reiterated his support for “advancing reform” and the dialogue process.

“The national dialogue has essentially frozen,” noted Toby Jones, a Gulf expert at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “It’s accomplished exactly what the royal family had hoped it would; that is, to basically paralyse the political process in Bahrain.”

“Washington had hoped that the crown prince and Al-Wefaq, the mainstream Shiite opposition party, could reach some negotiated compromise, but the crown prince is not as powerful as the U.S. would [like] him to be,” Jones explained.

“His rivals have used this kind of public politics as a way to give the appearance of accomplishing something without really accomplishing anything at all.”

The situation actually appears to have deteriorated, said rights advocates here, several of whom, including Dooley and the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, were given visas to Bahrain this spring only to have them cancelled at the last minute.

Since February, when HRW researchers visited the country to compile information for its new report, “‘Interfere, Restrict, Control’: Restraints on Freedom of Association in Bahrain”, the group has been denied visas to return.

“New laws and lengthy jail terms for activists have put freedom of association in Bahrain under severe threat,” HRW said Thursday, pointing to a draft bill that would be even more restrictive than current law, which bans CSOs from engaging in politics. “Bahraini authorities have left hardly any space for peaceful political dissent.”

“We’re seeing an uptick in the last month of people being pulled from their houses at night by masked men without warrants, similar to what happened [during the repression of] 2011, though not on the same scale,” Dooley told IPS. He also pointed to more “reports of torture in custody” and “a clampdown on social media”.

“No senior officials have been prosecuted for torture or extra-judicial killing. Judicial harassment of dissidents has continued, as has the excessive use of force by police, plus the problem of increasingly violent protests…with no light at the end of the tunnel,” he continued.

The Obama administration, according to Dooley, is deeply frustrated by the situation and increasingly impatient with the Khalifas to follow through with promises for reform. He noted that recent official U.S. government reports on human rights, religious freedom and labour rights in Bahrain have been noticeably more critical than in the two previous years.

In 2011 and 2012, no one in Washington considered moving the Fifth Fleet out of Bahrain, Dooley said. “But there’s now much more open discussion about it in two ways – that the level of repression may reach such a pitch that’s it’s just too embarrassing to have the fleet there and that the political situation is becoming so unstable and volatile that it’s just too risky for the fleet to remain.”

Jones, however, was more doubtful, particularly given rising regional tensions around Iran’s nuclear programme and strong Saudi pressure to support the monarchy.

“Washington continues to see Bahrain not as a place with complicated politics, but as a strategic asset.…If it had to choose a menu of options, it would choose the Al-Khalifas and a more or less stable Bahrain over a political system in which the opposition has more say,” he told IPS.

“Except for the crown prince, the other major players in the royal family don’t believe American pressure is real, and it’s not as evidenced by the continued sale of military hardware.” Indeed, in its proposed 2014 foreign aid budget, the administration asked for 10 million dollars in military sales credits, the same as in 2012, and 450,000 dollars in security training programmes for the Ministry of the Interior (MOI), which is in charge of the police.

In defending the latter, the State Department said the training would “contribute to counterterrorism and investigative support”.

As explosive devices from opposition protesters grow in sophistication, “the MOI needs training to better counter and prevent terrorist activities,” it said, and all training “will underscore the importance of adherence to international human rights standards while confronting serious threats”.

Residents queue at checkpoint in downtown Baghdad. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
KIRKUK, Iraq, Mar 19 2013 (IPS)

Driving into the city of Kirkuk, one is greeted by the view of a huge sea of grey concrete houses from which laundry has been hung out to dry in the wind and be blackened by smoke rising from the surrounding oil wells.

Only the turquoise flags fluttering from lampposts and balconies break the monochromatic view, reminding visitors that Turkmen form the majority here.

Indeed, this entire city, which lies 230 kilometres northwest of Baghdad on top of one of the world’s largest oil reserves, is disputed by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen. Its legal status is yet to be defined by a referendum that has been postponed since 2007 due to the lack of a population census.

Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Kirkuk has been languishing in a sort of legal “limbo” amid constant suicide attacks and targeted killings.

Today, according to the Kurdish MP Khalid Shawni, Kirkuk “is on the threshold of a new war.”

Receiving IPS at his residence in the neighbourhood of Tarik Baghdad, Shawni tells IPS, “Kirkuk is a black well in which Iraq finds its reflection. There is no political agreement, no dialogue and no confidence between the different communities.”

Paradoxically, the prospect of a civil conflict is one of the few points almost every Iraqi agrees on today, as the country marks ten years since the start of a war that has claimed the lives of over 100,000 Iraqis according to the Iraq Body Count database.

“After the invasion in 2003 we all expected an improvement in our living conditions but the sad truth is that today we are all knocked out by the system,” Arshad al Salihi, head of the Turkmen Front – the main coalition of this Iraqi minority – and the only Turkmen MP in Baghdad’s parliament, tells IPS.

“We believe that civil war is imminent and we’re all scared. If war finally breaks out we’ll be trapped in ‘no man’s land’ – it has always been like this for us,” explains the senior politician.

Protestors call for government removal

Just one day after U.S. troops officially left Iraqi soil in December 2011, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki – who also heads the ministries of interior and justice – triggered a political crisis when he ordered the arrest of Iraq’s Sunni Vice President Tariq Hashemi over allegations of promoting terrorism.

The Shia prime minister has constantly denied that such moves are politically motivated. But Sunnis say they are being increasingly marginalised from political power-sharing.

“Today Sunnis only form a majority in the prisons,” Mohammad Qasim Abid, governor of the Western Anbar region, told IPS in an interview conducted in March 2012.

Anti-government protests gained momentum in mid-December, when several bodyguards of Finance Minister Rafie al-Issawi, the highest-profile Sunni Arab in the cabinet, were arrested.

For the last three months, thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets of Nineveh, Anbar and Salahadin, in the west and northwest of Baghdad. It comes as no surprise to anyone that the biggest demonstrations since the outbreak of the “Iraqi Spring” – in February 2011 – are taking place in the predominantly Sunni regions of the country.

Ganem Alabed, coordinator of the demonstrations in Mosul, some 350 kilometres northwest of Baghdad, told IPS that tens of thousands of people have been gathering in Ahrar square in downtown Mosul every Friday since last December.

“We could be many more were it not for the security cordon around the area,” the activist claimed.

“People are asking for basic infrastructure to provide water and electricity, but are also crying out against abuses such as arbitrary arrests, including of children, or rapes inside the prisons,” Alabed told IPS in Mosul.

“Basically we are asking for a complete removal of the government in Baghdad.”

The local activist also blamed the police for the Mar. 8 killing of a protestor named Mahmoud Saleh, as well as for the gunshot injuries of 10 others.

On Mar. 9, Human Rights Watch interviewed witnesses to the Mosul shootings who claimed soldiers also searched and harassed demonstrators as they approached the protest site and tried to prevent ambulances from carrying away the wounded.

On Jan. 25, Iraqi soldiers reportedly opened fire on demonstrators in Fallujah, located 60 kilometres west of Baghdad, killing nine people.

In claiming that “foreign agents are behind the demonstrations”, Maliki echoes Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s attempts to discredit the legitimacy and grievances of those opposed to the ruling regime.

His remedy — to “isolate the virus” – involves repeatedly closing the borders with Syria and Jordan, which lie along Iraqi Sunni regions, and blocking protests as well as the press. In fact, this correspondent was the first foreign reporter to enter Mosul since the protests erupted three months ago, according to local activists.

Accordingly, images of the demonstrations pop up the same way as those in neighbouring Syria: footage is recorded using mobile phones and uploaded via Youtube.

The sense of déjà vu is even stronger when masked members of the self-proclaimed “Free Iraqi Army” – in clear imitation of the Free Syrian Army – start to give interviews to local and international media.

“We are not Baathists”

The demonstrations in Kirkuk may be much smaller given the city’s mixed population, but that did not prevent the local coordinator of the protest committee, Bunyan al Ubaidi, from being gunned down outside his home on Mar. 9.

“He is our first martyr in this new stage,” laments Ahmed al Ubaidi, a member of the same tribe as the deceased coordinator of the Arab Joint Coalition, comprised of 24 Arab organisations including political parties and NGO’s, which is set to participate in the 2013 provincial council elections.

“First we suffered the invasion of the (U.S.) and then that of Iran. We are not Baathists but we do not want to live under a regime governed by politicians loyal to Tehran,” stresses this former senior official in Saddam Hussein’s army.

Ubaidi firmly denies that the ongoing revolts are being spurred by the war in neighbouring Syria, insisting that the protestors simply seek “rights and democracy for all Iraqis”.

However, the veteran activist does not hesitate when it comes to denouncing the recent deployment in the region of the new Tigris Command Centre, a strong military unit exclusively composed of Shi’ite Arabs.

“Maliki has set up that unit under the pretext of ensuring security in Kirkuk but his only purpose is to protect the regime in case the crisis deepens,” explains Ubaidi, who used an old Iraqi expression to sum up the political climate in the country: “The protesters have planted a palm tree and now they are hoping to collect the dates.”

A poll released Tuesday shows a stark decline in favourability among Arab and Muslim citizens regarding the Iranian government and its policies.

Some who follow the issue are warning that tensions between Shia- and Sunni-led governments could ultimately be driving these shifts in attitude.

The poll, released by Zogby Research Services, is the latest in a series of surveys that charts public opinion in the Arab world on Iran. It polled 20,000 citizens in 17 Arab countries and three other non-Arab Muslim countries (Turkey, Azerbaijan and Pakistan), and was conducted over the course of several weeks beginning in September.What we’re seeing is entrenched in a really quite frightening spread of sectarianism.

An earlier poll, conducted in 2006, had indicated skyrocketing public opinion in the Arab world on Iran, with favourability ratings around 75 percent. Six years later, the new poll shows those same rates plummeting to around 25 percent, a decline that is being attributed to shifting perceptions towards both the United States and Iran, as well as growing Sunni-Shia tension.

In an IPS article published almost two years ago, in July 2011, journalist Barbara Slavin noted that favourability ratings toward Iran in the region were already in steep decline. In an extreme case, the Egyptian attitude fell from an 89 percent rating to just 36 percent.

In 2012, the most favourable views of the United States were expressed in Saudi Arabia (30 percent) and Lebanon (25 percent). The least favourable views were found in Jordan (10 percent) and Egypt (six percent).

Numbers indicating favourability toward the United States were generally lower and more volatile than those toward Iran, in the five to 40 percent range.

Meanwhile, Iran was viewed most favourably in Lebanon, with 61 percent, and Egypt further behind with 38 percent.

Iranian favourability ratings began much higher in 2006 and fell in all countries over the next six years. Public opinion fell the least in Lebanon, where favourability toward Iran was the highest out of all the countries (65 percent) in the last year.

In virtually every question, including two on Iranian roles in Bahrain and Syria in which other countries’ favourability ratings severely dropped, Lebanese participants answered with favourability rates above 70 percent.

Different explanations for the results were discussed at the Wilson Center here on Tuesday.

James Zogby, director of the Arab American Institute, said that in 2006 Iran had benefited from the perception that it was the centre of resistance against both the West, whose occupation of Iraq was then in its third year, and Israel, which had just fought a brief but very destructive war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Zogby suggested that Turkey was now supplanting Iran in this role, while the latter is perceived as stoking divisiveness in Iraq, Bahrain, Lebanon and Syria. The U.S. profile in the region, he noted, has also been reduced by its withdrawal from Iraq.

But analysts who responded to the poll cautioned against reading the results too optimistically and confusing anti-Iranian and anti-Shia sentiment.

“What we’re seeing is entrenched in a really quite frightening spread of sectarianism,” Marc Lynch, a Middle East expert and international affairs professor, said Tuesday. The results of the poll, he noted, need to be read as much as a “cautionary tale about the future of the Middle East as a feel-good tale of declining Iranian influence”.

Hisham Melham, head of the Washington bureau of Al Arabiya News Channel, also expressed concern over growing sectarianism in the region, going so far as to say that the Sunni-Shia divide is the worst it has ever been in the region.

Syria factor

The civil war in Syria also appears to be playing a significant role in this dynamic. Marc Lynch warned that some of the events that have proved crucial in undermining Iranian influence in the region, including the ongoing conflict in Syria, are creating new opportunities for expanding Iranian influence.

“Iranian influence in Syria is not going to go away,” he cautioned, “and one can easily imagine an insurgency fighting against what appears to be a Western-backed government in Damascus” when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad falls.

Middle East observers have been increasingly expressing concern over the region’s deepening sectarianism, especially as it exacerbates the conflict in Syria. After the removal of former president Saddam Hussein in Iraq, sectarian conflict and perception of a threat posed by Shi’ism has grown in the region.

Baghdad has been led by a predominantly Shia government since Hussein’s ouster and subsequent execution.

In the Syrian conflict, the government of President al-Assad has been backed primarily by Iran and the Lebanese Shia Hezbollah, while the rebels, who are predominantly Sunni, are supported primarily by the Sunni-led Gulf kingdoms and, to a lesser extent, Turkey. The Shia-led Iraqi government has also provided backing for al-Assad.

According to the new polling data, Palestinians hold particularly unfavourable views toward Iran, with favourability ratings in the 20 percent range. That compares, for instance, with relatively favourable polling outcomes towards the United States, with two-thirds of Palestinians responding that the U.S. contributed to stability in the Arab world.

Barbara Slavin, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, expressed particular surprise at the Palestinian results, but likewise attributed the finding to the Syrian conflict.

“Iran and Hezbollah are rallying to the side of Assad in Syria, while Arab countries are funnelling money and weapons to the largely Sunni rebels in Syria,” she told IPS.

Pan-Islamic image

One of the most striking results of the new poll was a change in Arab public opinion over the past half-dozen years regarding Iran’s efforts to expand its nuclear power programme, producing enriched uranium that could be used for military purposes – a change Tehran denies.

In Saudi Arabia in 2006, for example, only about 15 percent of those polled believed Iran had nuclear weapons ambitions, compared with 78 percent in 2012. In Jordan, that number jumped from eight percent in 2006 to 72 percent in 2012.

The number increased in every country polled, albeit by smaller margins in the other six countries.

Although experts disagree on the underlying drivers of the shifting sentiments, it was clear that the polling results could potentially pose major problems for the Iranian government.

“Iranians have tried to project a pan-Islamic image of themselves since the 1979 revolution,” Slavin said, “which doesn’t work if they’re seen as a narrow sectarian power.”

On the eve of the second anniversary of the uprising in Bahrain, the administration of President Barack Obama is being urged to press the royal family to make genuine compromises with the predominantly Shi’a opposition.

Among other measures, experts here are calling on the Pentagon to prepare plans for relocating the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which has been based in the tiny island archipelago since 1995, as a signal of the seriousness of Washington’s concerns about the direction of events in the kingdom.

“Those who contend that U.S. concerns over human rights and democracy promotion should take a backseat to hardnosed realism and strategic imperatives will soon find themselves overtaken by Bahrain’s steady descent,” according to a new report released by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“After two years of stalemate and worsening tensions, meaningful political reforms in Bahrain have themselves become strategic imperatives for the United States – crucial measures to stave off further destabilization that could one day put American interests and people at risk,” according to “The Precarious Ally: Bahrain’s Impasse and U.S. Policy,” by Gulf expert Frederic Wehrey.Those in prison have a lot of followers, and if they are not engaged, this will fail.

The report – as well as a several discussions at prominent think tanks about the future of U.S. policy toward Bahrain timed to coincide with the anniversary – comes amidst considerable scepticism about the prospects for a new “dialogue” between the opposition and various pro-government groups that got underway Sunday.

Washington has “welcomed” the dialogue and the agreement by Al-Wefaq, the major opposition political party whose parliamentary members resigned their seats to protest the government’s violent repression or popular protests two years ago, to take part in it.

But even leaders of Al-Wefaq, which has reportedly lost ground to more-radical Shi’a groups organised loosely around the February 14 Youth Coalition, have expressed strong scepticism about prospects for much progress, particularly given government’s failure to release political prisoners and the fact that it has limited its own involvement to moderating the dialogue.

While Al-Wefaq is calling for a constitutional monarchy, the Youth Coalition, which has engaged in increasingly violent confrontations with the security forces, has demanded an end to the rule by the Al-Khalifa family.

On Wednesday, Bahraini police reportedly used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse hundreds of protesters in the capital called out by February 14.

“We want the ruling family to be there (at the table),” Khalil al-Marzooq, a senior Al-Wefaq official who served as first deputy speaker of the Bahraini parliament before his resignation two years ago, told a conference held Wednesday at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) here.

“Those in prison have a lot of followers, and if they are not engaged, this will fail,” he stressed, adding that such an outcome will bring “more trouble” on the streets and further polarisation of the country.

“I’m pessimistic (about) this round of dialogue,” said Toby Jones, a Gulf specialist at Rutgers University, bluntly at another discussion on Bahrain at the Carnegie Center Wednesday.

“There’s an absolute lack of trust on the part of the vast majority of Bahrainis toward the government. Absent political will by the government to make critical choices, there will be no change.”

While the Obama administration has continuously urged democratic reforms and dialogue between the Sunni-dominated government and representatives of the Shi’a community, which makes up between 60 and 70 percent of the kingdom’s indigenous population, it has been reluctant to exert serious pressure to achieve those ends.

Its strongest statement dates back to May 2011, when Obama himself complained that the government couldn’t conduct a serious dialogue with the opposition when “parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail”.

Washington’s reluctance to take stronger action is explained both by the presence of the Fifth Fleet, whose resources have been significantly boosted as tensions with Iran have increased over the past two years, and by the strong backing Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter and Washington most important regional ally and arms-purchaser, has provided the hard-liners in the Al-Khalifa family.

Indeed, concerned that King Hamad might have been tempted to compromise with demands by the opposition, which also included prominent Sunnis, Riyadh, along with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), sent some 1,500 troops and police across its causeway to Bahrain in support of the government’s violent crackdown in mid-March 2011.

In addition to charging that Iran was behind the unrest in Bahrain – a charge that has been mostly rejected by U.S. officials – Saudi Arabia has worried that any empowerment of Bahrain’s Shi’a community would encourage its own Shi’a population, which is concentrated in its oil-rich Eastern province, to agitate for change.

Indeed, the conflict has become increasingly polarised along sectarian lines, a development that Wehrey said was being deliberately stoked by the “al-Khawalid” branch of the Al Khalifa family led by two brothers – the royal court minister, Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, and the commander of the Bahrain Defence Forces (BDF), Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa.

This faction has not only marginalised the U.S. favourite, Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, who is widely seen as a reformist interested in serious dialogue, but it has also promoted anti-U.S. sentiment, according to Wehrey’s study.

The Shi’a opposition has also broken into factions. While Al-Wefaq remains committed – if sceptically – to dialogue, the various tendencies identified with the February 14 Coalition, which consists mainly of militants in their teens and twenties, reject such efforts as futile.

Moreover, anti-U.S. sentiment has also grown within the Shi’a community, according to Wehrey and other experts. Despite Washington’s backing for dialogue, it is seen as supporting the regime, particularly after last January’s announcement that it was proceeding with the delivery of arms – albeit none that could be used for crowd control or domestic repression – that had been put on hold temporarily by Congress.

“The main weakness in U.S. policy is we’ve tried to have it both ways” by pushing for dialogue and reform on the one hand and reassuring the regime of its security commitment, Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), told the NED audience. “As a result, it has put us in the worst possible world.”

Malinowski agreed that Washington should begin considering alternatives to the Fifth Fleet’s base in Bahrain to impress the royal family with the seriousness of its concern. Washington should “be clear that if this round (of dialogue) fails, the U.S. will have to re-evaluate its security relationship.”

Wehrey noted that some opposition leaders were concerned that moving the Fleet out of Bahrain could actually bolster the hardliners in the royal family and result in Saudi Arabia filling the security vacuum.

But, “(g)iven the opacity of the royal family, it is unclear if this will actually be the case – or if using the Fifth Fleet as leverage might actually send the clearest signal yet that America will no longer countenance the regime’s current path.”

In addition to beginning planning to relocate the Fifth Fleet out of Bahrain, Wehrey urged Washington to consider conditioning Manama’s purchase of high-end weapons systems, such as the F-16, over which the U.S. has a monopoly that the BDF cannot buy elsewhere as it did when Washington held up the transfer of armoured personnel carriers.

Targeted financial sanctions, such as freezing the U.S. assets of senior Bahraini officials involved in human-rights abuses, could also help, according to Wehrey.

*Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.

Despite the start of a government-inspired dialogue with the opposition Sunday, the Bahraini government continues to jail dissidents, arrest demonstrators, and use a rigged judicial system to convict them.

Although the Al-Khalifa regime officially is not a party to the dialogue, Western governments welcomed the justice ministry’s call for dialogue, hoping the process will silence the opposition and relieve the West of the moral responsibility to address human rights abuses in Bahrain. According to initial media reports, the so-called “national dialogue” does not seem promising.

The Al-Khalifa regime not only has banned Shia from working in the national security sector; it has pressured private companies to fire Shia employees and replace them with Sunni workers. Security forces frequently storm into activists’ homes and arrest them without arrest warrants or specific charges. The regime is enforcing a Sunni apartheid system on the Shia majority.

King Hamad and his uncle, the prime minister, have relied on Saudi military and economic support to enforce their anti-Shia policies. According to recent media reports, “Desert Shield” enforcements, presumably Saudi, have entered Bahrain.

The regime also has enlisted Sunni leaders in the region, including the Egyptian Grand Mufti of al-Azhar, to implicitly support the Sunni crackdown on the Shia opposition. The Grand Mufti and other anti-Shia figures have used Iran as a pretext.

A recent report by the Washington-based think tank Project for Middle East Democracy has concluded that the regime has not implemented the six key recommendations of the Bassiouni BICI report. These recommendations – 1719, 1722b, 1722d, 1722h, 1724a, and 1724c – focus on torture, convictions, illegal arrests and lengthy incarcerations, censorship, and regime incitement of hatred, violence, and sectarianism.

Washington’s continued refusal to force the Al-Khalifa to institute real reforms is endangering the personal security of our diplomats, military personnel, and civilians in Bahrain. The killing of Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi in the midst of chaos and terrorism should not be lost on anyone.

Al-Khalifa’s refusal to respond to their people’s rightful demands would spell the end of their tribal rule. It will also harm U.S. interests in the Gulf region.

The stalemate has pushed many Bahraini activists to replace their demands for reform with calls for regime change. Once the regime loses the reform game, its demise become inevitable. Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Tunisia offer a sobering lesson.

The dialogue meeting that was held Feb. 10 and is supposed to occur on successive Sundays and Wednesdays included a majority of pro-government participants and only eight representatives of the opposition groups. Since the government has not agreed to the nine demands of the opposition, some media reports already view the government dialogue initiative as merely a public relations stunt.

The situation in Bahrain is becoming unsustainable. It is time for Obama’s new Secretary of State John Kerry to employ the full range of U.S. diplomacy and power to change it.

What to do?

As the Bahraini opposition marks its second anniversary on Feb. 14, President Obama and Secretary Kerry should take a hard look at Bahrain and decide whether the survival of Al-Khalifa rule is in the best interests of the U S.

If it is, the administration should pursue a proactive policy to save the regime. President Obama and Secretary Kerry should impress on Bahrain’s King Hamad the necessity to implement the following steps:

First, initiate genuine, inclusive dialogue with representatives of all opposition groups. The dialogue should be led by Crown Prince Salman and should focus on substantive reforms and not become mired in process and media sound bites.

Second, the king should relieve Prime Minister Khalifa of his position and replace him temporarily with the crown prince until a permanent prime minister is appointed.

Third, the king should set a date certain for national elections to a parliament with full legislative powers. International monitors should be invited to supervise the elections. Following the parliamentary elections, the king should appoint a new prime minister subject to parliamentary approval.

Fourth, the king and the crown prince as an interim prime minister should implement the six key recommendations in the BICI report, referred to above. The crown prince should also establish a special commission to include government and opposition representative to oversee the implementation of all the recommendations highlighted in the BICI report.

Fifth, the crown prince should review the employment discriminatory policies against the Shia, especially in the armed forces and the security services, and provide equal access opportunities for all qualified Bahraini citizens to apply for jobs in these sectors regardless of religious affiliation.

These urgent steps must be taken to satisfy the legitimate demands of the opposition if the regime is to save itself.

*Emile Nakhleh, a former Senior Intelligence Service Officer, is a Research Professor at the University of New Mexico and author of A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World and Bahrain: Political Development in a Modernizing Society.

Tens of thousands of Sunni Muslims blocked Iraq’s main trade route to neighbouring Syria and Jordan in a fourth day of demonstrations against Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The massive show of force on Wednesday marks an escalation in protests that erupted last week after troops detained the bodyguards of Sunni Finance Minister Rafia al-Issawi, threatening to plunge Iraq deeper into political turmoil.

“The people want to bring down the regime,” chanted thousands of protesters in the Sunni stronghold of Anbar province.

It was the fourth major protest in less than a week in an area, which was once the heart of the deadly Sunni insurgency that erupted after the U.S. -led invasion in 2003.

“This sit-in will remain open-ended until the demonstrators’ demands are met, and until the injustice against ends,” cleric Hamid al-Issawi told The Associated Press at the protest.

He accused Maliki of trying to create rifts among Sunni and Shia populations.

“These practices are aimed at drawing the country into a sectarian conflict again by creating crisis and targeting prominent national figures,” the cleric said.

In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera in Doha on Monday, exiled Vice President Tareq al-Hashimi leveled similar accusations against the Maliki government.

“On the ground, al-Maliki in fact, on a daily basis (is governing in a) sectarian way,” Hashimi said.

“We don’t have any option but to advocate and defend ourselves,” he said in justifying the ongoing protests by Sunni-backed groups.

Hashimi is now living in exile in Turkey after being handed multiple death sentences for allegedly running death squads, a charge he dismisses as politically motivated.

Sectarian tension

The case is exacerbating tensions with Iraq’s Sunnis, who see the detentions as politically motivated.

Earlier in the week, demonstrators gathered along a highway linking Baghdad with neighbouring Jordan and Syria.

They held banners demanding that Sunnis’ rights be respected and calling for the release of Sunni prisoners in Iraqi jails.

“We warn the government not to draw the country into sectarian conflict,” read one. Another declared: “We are not a minority.”

Iraq’s majority Shia rose to power following the 2003 U.S. -led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated government, although the country’s minority Sunni Arabs and Kurds do hold some posts within the government.

Maliki has defended the arrests of the finance minister’s guards as legal and based on warrants issued by judicial authorities.

He also recently warned against a return to sectarian strife in criticising the responses of prominent Sunni officials to the detentions.

In a recent statement, the prime minister dismissed the rhetoric as political posturing ahead of provincial elections scheduled for April and warned his opponents not to forget the dark days of sectarian fighting “when we used to collect bodies and chopped heads from the streets”.

The political tensions are rising at a sensitive time. Iraq’s ailing President Jalal Talabani is incapacitated following a serious stroke last week and is being treated in a German hospital.

The 79-year-old president, an ethnic Kurd, is widely seen as a unifying figure with the clout to mediate among the country’s ethnic and sectarian groups.

The discontent, however, extends beyond sectarian lines, according to Iraqi political analyst Sabah al-Mukhtar.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, al-Mukhtar said Iraqis “are very unhappy with the present regime” citing the breakdown of political dynamics between the Sunnis, Shia and Kurds, as well as lack of infrastructure and basic services.

“All these issues are making all of the Iraqis want change,” al-Mukhtar said. “And don’t forget, we have the Arab Spring. The Iraqis are saying, ‘If everybody else revolted, why aren’t we revolting against a regime, which is anyway imposed on us by an occupying force in 2003?'”