THAT THE Gulf royalty should rally to the defence of Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa was hardly surprising. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman are all contributing to the Gulf Co-operation Council military force that has arrived on the island to prop up the al-Khalifas. But the solidarity has little to do with concern for the island’s 200-year monarchy and a lot to do with regional power politics and fear for their own pampered positions.
In Manama, following the declaration of a state of emergency, the toll is rising. Yesterday Bahraini troops using live fire cleared hundreds from a protest camp at Pearl roundabout that has become the epicentre of the opposition movement. Three police and three protesters died, according to reports from hospitals.
Revolution is infectious and the Gulf rulers will have welcomed both the invitation to assist and the effective eclipsing of reformers by conservative family members. Events in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have filled the ruling elites with dread. Even hints at the idea of a constitutional monarchy are seen as dangerously subversive and they have used unsubstantiated and probably – so far – unwarranted scare stories of Iranian backing for the protesters from Bahrain’s Shia majority as a pretext for the crackdown.
As much as its democratic demands, the sectarian dynamic to Bahrain’s crisis, inflamed internally by longstanding and justified Shia grievances about discrimination, has touched raw Saudi nerves. The kingdom is dominated by an extreme form of Sunni Islam – Wahhabism – and its rulers fear its own substantial Shia population, a restive and underprivileged majority in the oil-rich eastern province. It is acutely sensitive also to the loss of the other regional bulwark against Shia Iran, Egypt.
The Saudi intervention came despite opposition from the United States – indeed there is evidence the US did not know it was happening. Washington sees Bahrain as a key strategic ally, maintaining its Fifth Fleet in Manama’s port and using bases for its military aircraft. Concerned that a refusal to concede any change may ultimately prompt revolution and the complete loss of a key associate, the US has been urging gradual reform. Testimony to its waning influence, however, this appears to have been to little avail.
Now, as Libya looks perilously like falling back into Gadafy’s clutches and Bahrain cracks down, there is a dread sense that the Arab revolution may have had its all-too-brief day. For now.