The Coming War Over Bahrain?

I feel that there most be an insightful quote from history to sum up all the awesome events that have rocked the Middle East since December 17th, 2010. It is humbling to think that the simply fortuitous act by a poor Tunisian street vendor could shake an entire people. Mohamed Bouazizi died without ever knowing the consequences of his deed. It was a simply cry and should have been inconsequential. But in less than a month the Tunisian regime fell in stunning speed and the ex-tyrant's name which used to adore an international airport, street and square - among others - has been washed off and replaced by Bouaziza. A man who could not even get the attention of a local official will never live in history as one of the greatest Tunisians and Arabs.

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It is often that history is shaken by the act of one man. And one small nation heretofore irrelevant to regional and world politics can also shake the world. That is the case with Bahrain. This island nation home to 500,000 people was until now simply a detail in the Middle East. Even the presence of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet was rarely remarked on. All that has changed.

The Bahraini people have joined the Arab revolution and are demanding a constitutional monarchy, if the not the exile of the corrupt detested royals. But unlike in Tunisia and Egypt, regional players have literally entered the fray. Bahraini's democratic uprising is mostly confined to the 70% Shia population which faces sectarian discrimination by the ruling Sunni monarch. Most of the privileged Sunni citizens are either indifferent or opposed to the uprising, many back the ruling al Khalifa family. Saudi Arabia, a kingdom with its own restive and discriminated against Shia population (although in Saudi it is a minority of 10-20%), is fearful of both another Arab ally (Bahrain's monarch is funded by Saudi oil wealth) being overthrown and one so close to home (the Saudi royals dread the day of democracies closing around their borders) and also worry that a majority Shia uprising will cause inspiration and unrest in Shia areas in the kingdom which incidentally sit on top of most of the oil reserves. Thus the Saudis have since invaded, or been "invited" per regal propaganda, Bahrain to help brutally suppress a democratic uprising. This is truly the Arab's Prague Spring when Russian troops invaded Czechoslovakia to massacre young protesters and further prop up a client regime. The Saudis are aided by the United Arab Emirates who are also still morning the loss of Mubarak and lest not forget that Saudi Arabia still houses and now even provides a stipend for ex-Tunisian dictator Ben Ali, and has refused Tunisian requests to extradite him for prosecution. This royal family in its reactionary support for tyrannies and religious fanaticism is beyond contempt. And haughty in the face of popular Arab will, including domestic opinion, to boot. The idea that they would play host to an exiled dictator, publicly mourn another, and then send troops to stiffen the hand of a third will only make the royal's inevitable comeuppance even more deserved, potent, forceful and celebratory for the Saudi people, and likely precipitate it. And not a day too soon.

So the Saudis have sent troops into Bahrain to crush a majority-Shia uprising truly in the name of a state whose national ideology is rooted in hostility, militant hostility, to Shiism. And the Saudis have long maintained a tense relationship with the Iranians, Persian and Shia rivals for dominance in the Gulf. And the Iranian regime has long viewed Bahrain as a province and the ruling family as worthy of being toppled. The Shias in Bahrain, it should be noted, reject an alliance with Iran: instead boosting about their Arab pride and non-sectarian hopes for a pluralistic liberal democracy. But the Iranian regime has adopted their cause nonetheless purely on sectarian grounds and in another Cold War act against the Saudi royals. The Iranian regime has criticized the invasion along with Shia factions in Iraq and Lebanon, as if the case with the Lebanese party-cum-militia Hezbollah.

All this raises the stakes. Will Sunni Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates fight a deadly war of attrition against Shia Iran, Iraqi and Lebanese groups as the former backs the monarch and the latter throw their weight behind the demonstrators? If so, this could get very messy, spill over into another contested arenas (the U.A.E., for instances, accuses Iran of occupying several of its islands and the Saudis have long worried about Iranian influence among their Shias. And all this is already next to the ongoing battle for influence between the Saudis and Iranians in Lebanon and Iraq), and be very prolonged and even involve direct clashes of force. Sly sabotage is even more likely.

So all this raises that idea that this tiny nation of Bahrain, and the battle over it, could very well spark the next Middle East war. It would be a sad consequence for an Arab Spring which started in such a hopeful manner and, fortunately, so peacefully. But the Saudis had to naturally ruin the moment and launch a counterrevolution. They will be responsible if any war breaks out.

Bahrain would be the Middle East's Balkan nation where a tiny nation's fate launches a regional war. Either way, the Saudis royals soon be humbled and may peace and freedom rain over Bahrain.

As for a quote. These are fast times in the Arab world. Lenin once (reportedly) remarked, "Sometimes decades pass and nothing happens. Sometimes weeks pass and decades happen." So it is so.