CNN: There are disturbing accounts from major human rights organizations about abuses in Bahrain and the systematic state violence that has been unleashed on the opposition movement against the monarchy of the Al-Khalifa family.
And yet Bahrain has not become the story because the movement for social justice, government accountability and independence is being violently suppressed, but because of wider strategic calculations that bind the fate of the island to the future of regional politics.
There are at least three strategic issues at stake when it comes to the political present and future of the country. First, Bahrain hosts a major naval base for the U.S. fifth fleet, and the ruling Al-Khalifa family has been a trusted ally of the United States for several decades.
Yet Bahrain's rulers have not taken advantage of the security guarantees provided by successive U.S. governments in order to open up the political system or to sponsor a rather more equitable social and economic order.
According to the constitution of Bahrain the king appoints all members of the upper house of the parliament, while the lower house was voted into office in 2010.
But this has not lead to real political representation of the majority Shia population or to a system of wealth distribution that is equitable. In fact, Bahrain continues to be one of the few hereditary monarchies of the world.
In the absence of a strong legitimacy of the state, systematic violence has functioned as a short cut to safeguard the regime. Hence, the current crackdown, which has not drawn much criticism from the United States and the European Union, who were/are by far louder about the situation in Libya (and indeed about anything that happens in Iran). » | Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Special to CNN | Monday, April 25, 2011
Editor's note: Arshin Adib-Moghaddam is University Lecturer in Comparative and International Politics at SOAS, University of London. He is the author of "Iran in World Politics: the Question of the Islamic Republic," and his most recent book, "A metahistory of the clash of civilizations: Us and them beyond Orientalism" has just been published by Columbia University Press and Hurst.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Arshin Adib-Moghaddam.
