THE OBSERVER: Despite an official stance that the Saudis were there to restore order, the real aim was to crush the rebelsSaudi Arabia and the UAE between them sit on tens of billions of dollars worth of state-of-the-art military equipment. They have both backed calls for UN-sponsored "no-fly zones" over Libya.
Even if they are now willing to risk their expensive toys against the relatively meagre threat from Colonel Gaddafi's air defences, they will play a junior role to western forces.
It will be the second military intervention by the Gulf states in a few days, but the first was on a far more primitive level: teargas grenades fired at point-blank range into the faces of unarmed demonstrators; punishment beatings for injured protesters in their hospital beds; violence and intimidation against the wives and children of opposition activists in their village homes.
Hypocrisy is one word for the motives behind the deployment of the "Peninsula Shield" forces in Bahrain last week. Cowardice is another.
When I watched Saudi soldiers rolling over the causeway linking the two kingdoms on Monday, they were giving victory signs to local TV cameras. Bahrain TV showed archive footage of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and King Hamad of Bahrain performing a traditional Bedouin war dance together.
Despite the official stance that the Saudis and UAE troops had arrived to guard essential infrastructure and restore order on the streets, there was little doubt as to the real purpose: to put down, by whatever means necessary, a growing rebellion by the kingdom's majority, but deprived, Shia citizens.
The day before, unarmed demonstrators had effectively beaten the security forces in Manama. A move to clear a protesters' camp on the fringes of the main gathering at Pearl roundabout had led to an influx of protesters to the city, determined to defend their turf. The police withdrew when they ran out of teargas canisters.
The sight of the police – many of whom are hired guns from Pakistan, Syria and other parts of the Sunni world – running from Shia demonstrators reawoke the fears of Gulf governments that the "party of Ali" was on the rise again. » | William Butler | Sunday, March 20, 2011
