Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Bahrain

  • Trump Deserves Praise for Ending the Palestinian Veto

    Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani Benjamin Netanyahu Donald Trump
    Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, join Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and American president Donald Trump at the White House in Washington DC, September 15 (White House/Tia Dufour)

    I haven’t been Donald Trump’s greatest fan, but for once he deserves praise: for facilitating the normalization of ties between Israel and two of its Arab neighbors.

    In a treaty signed at the White House on Tuesday, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates entered into diplomatic relations with the Jewish state for the first time.

    Only Egypt and Jordan had so far. Other Arab states do not accept Israeli passports and do not exchange embassies with Tel Aviv.

    We don’t know how involved Trump was in the negotiations, and the agreements fall short of what he calls a “peace deal”. The countries weren’t at war.

    But it’s a significant step and a welcome departure from previous presidents, who allowed the Palestinians a veto over Arab-Israeli relations. (more…)

  • Bahraini Dissidents Face Deeper, Systematic Crackdown

    Bahrain may appear a relatively stable Western ally in a critically important region of the world, but there is a dark cloud hanging over the island kingdom.

    The peaceful protests in Bahrain that were once prevalent during the beginning of the country’s version of the “Arab Spring” have succumbed to a dangerous mix of arrests, flimsy prosecutions, indefinite detention, torture and violence. A significant part of this is fueled by the Bahraini monarchy’s refusal to enact political reforms, much to the chagrin of international human rights activists. Recommendations to enhance the power of the legislature and prosecute senior security officials who are suspected of abuse have been largely ignored.

    Instead of more freedom to speak and a political order that is more accountable to Bahrain’s people, what the country’s residents have faced is a deeper and more systemic crackdown on their activities. (more…)

  • Old Wounds in the Persian Gulf

    American, Arab and European armed forces may be intensively focused on operations over Libya but something just as dramatic is unfolding on the other side of the Middle East. Although this conflict may not be as violent as the one currently underway in Libya, it is nevertheless highly significant for every country that has even a remote interest in the region.

    The drama in question concerns the rebellion in the island kingdom of Bahrain, a small nation barely visible on a map but a geostrategic hub where the Arab world’s most fractious political and social fault lines converge: sectarianism, class, religion and age. (more…)

  • The Volcanic Island in the Persian Gulf

    Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are usually described in the press as the “big” American allies in the Middle East — the countries that hold the most geostrategic weight and the ones whose leaders are most willing and able to help the United States in the region when it cannot help itself. Before Hosni Mubarak was thrown out of his palace, all three states were also seen as the most politically stable, at least in the short term when compared to the tinderbox that is Lebanon and the young Iraqi democracy.

    This line of thinking has guided American foreign policy in the Middle East for the last three decades. Saudi Arabia is used by the United States to counter the influence of Iran in the Persian Gulf while Egypt in the Mubarak era was a key (if not the key) partner in counterterrorism missions. But with Arabs now waking up to anew reality — a reality that clearly exhibits the strong and windy force of “people power” — Barack Obama’s administration has rightly begun to rethink the myriad that is the American foreign policy status quo.

    Putting aside Egypt’s young transition to democracy for a moment, no other country today is more emblematic to America’s predicament in the region than the tiny kingdom of Bahrain; that little known island smack in the middle of Iran and the Sunni Arab world. (more…)