THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The Bahrain monarchy's reflexive fear of Iran drove its decision to call out Saudi Arabian troops
"That programme must be stopped," thundered Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, Bahrain's King, in 2009. "The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it."
King Hammad's deep fears about Iran's nuclear programme, contained in a leaked diplomatic cable recording his conversation with a US military commander, help explain his decision call in Saudi Arabian troops to help quell the protests now sweeping the tiny Gulf emirate.
The protests are modest by standards of the protests sweeping the Middle East: there has been no violence, like in Libya, nor a giant, regime-threatening mass mobilisation, like in Egypt. Last month, seven protesters were shot dead by police – but most experts agree the violence was caused by the excessive use of force by authorities, not uncontrollably-large protests.
Bahrain, though, sees the protests through the prism of its relationship with its militarily-powerful neighbour – which it fears could use the religious affiliations of the majority of the emirate's population to sweep the monarchy aside.
The central issue is this: Bahrain's rulers are Sunnis, the descendants of the central Arabian Bani Utbah clan who seized power in 1783. Four in five people they rule, though, are Shi'a, linked by faith and politics to Iran. For decades, Bahrain's rulers allowed raiders from central Arabia to pillage Shi'a villages – and Bahrain's democratic movement isn't, its leadership has been pointing out, exclusively Shi'a: the two sects haven't had significant problems coexisting, and share concerns ranging from unemployment to housing.
The Shi'a do, however, have a unique problem with the monarchy. Even though four in five of Bahrain's citizens are Shia, for example, they make up just 60 per cent of the military, a consequence of fears that the community had been radicalised by the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran.
Bahrain's Shi'a are also under-represented in the bureaucracy, which is increasingly staffed by puritanical Salafists hostile to Bahrain's majority on theological grounds. » | Praveen Swami, Diplomatic Editor | Wednesday, March 16, 2011
