The Saudi intervention has sectarianised the conflict even more, and thus may well have sealed the Bahrain regime's fate
Brian Whitaker
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 March 2011
"While much of the world has been preoccupied with questions about a no-fly zone over Libya, Arab Gulf states have been busy establishing what might be called a "no-protest zone" in the Arabian peninsula....
The effect of the Saudi intervention is to sectarianise the conflict more than it need have been and, in effect, to prevent any accommodation between the rulers of Bahrain and the protesters.
"We're not going in [to Bahrain] to shoot people, we're going in to keep a system in place," a Saudi official was quoted as saying in the Washington Post. An official from the UAE put it even more bluntly: "We and the Saudis will not accept a Shi'ite government in Bahrain."
In other words, as far as the GCC countries are concerned, democracy or majority rule can never be allowed there.
This is unbelievably short-sighted. The majority of Bahrain's population cannot be kept marginalised for ever, and the sooner change gets under way the better it will be for everyone. Instead, the regime is being pushed into an intransigent stance which, in the longer term, may well seal its fate.
The Saudis, meanwhile, continue to store up trouble for themselves in their treatment of the Shia communities back home.....
As always, the US continues to fret about stability among its allies but increasingly it seems to be recognising – unlike Gulf rulers themselves – that radical change is inevitable and that the wisest course is not to stand in its way but to try to minimise the turmoil when it happens."
Brian Whitaker
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 March 2011
"While much of the world has been preoccupied with questions about a no-fly zone over Libya, Arab Gulf states have been busy establishing what might be called a "no-protest zone" in the Arabian peninsula....
The effect of the Saudi intervention is to sectarianise the conflict more than it need have been and, in effect, to prevent any accommodation between the rulers of Bahrain and the protesters.
"We're not going in [to Bahrain] to shoot people, we're going in to keep a system in place," a Saudi official was quoted as saying in the Washington Post. An official from the UAE put it even more bluntly: "We and the Saudis will not accept a Shi'ite government in Bahrain."
In other words, as far as the GCC countries are concerned, democracy or majority rule can never be allowed there.
This is unbelievably short-sighted. The majority of Bahrain's population cannot be kept marginalised for ever, and the sooner change gets under way the better it will be for everyone. Instead, the regime is being pushed into an intransigent stance which, in the longer term, may well seal its fate.
The Saudis, meanwhile, continue to store up trouble for themselves in their treatment of the Shia communities back home.....
As always, the US continues to fret about stability among its allies but increasingly it seems to be recognising – unlike Gulf rulers themselves – that radical change is inevitable and that the wisest course is not to stand in its way but to try to minimise the turmoil when it happens."
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