Saudi Arabia adopts the Brezhnev doctrine?

 Once again, Stratfor seems to have gotten things backwards, without ever mis-stating a single fact. Stratfor says, “The Iranian roadmap in the Persian Gulf appears to be off-track as a result of a pretty overt U.S. and Saudi countermove in the region.” Here at TPTM, we say Saudi Arabia just made a mistake, and the emerging U.S.-Saudi split just got significantly wider.

As you all know, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), founded to defend against Iran’s revolutionary Shia politics, today coordinated the entry of troops from the Peninsular Shield Force and UAE police units. Apparently, the Bahraini and Saudi governments considered the local foreign-staffed security forces to be insufficient.

The move comes after a weekend of demonstrations and violence that claimed the lives of two more protesters. The most recent round was severe enough to encourage Sunni lawmakers to ask the King to declare martial law. Of course, as this video shows, the violence ran both ways. These are pro-government thugs attacking students at the University of Bahrain:

Stratfor declares “The GCC countries have made their countermove to Iran’s destabilization campaign and are doing so with apparent U.S. backing.” Reuters says differently. So does all the supporting evidence. Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Gates visited Bahrain. There he said, in no uncertain terms, that the United States wants the Khalifa family to accept a constitutional monarchy. It seems unlikely that Washington had anything to do with the decision to dispatch GCC forces.

The chief barrier to resolving the Bahraini situation is that the royal family is split. The King’s uncle, and Prime Minister since 1971, is the unofficial head of the hardliners. (He may have ordered the first attack on the demonstrators at the Pearl traffic circle.)  The Crown Prince is the leader of the liberal faction in the family, and he has been pro-active in apologizing for the deaths of protestors on national television and meeting with opposition groups throughout the crisis. The King is the moderate caught in the middle. That internal jockeying has made managing the protests more difficult.

This morning, however, the situation got infinitely worse. It is not clear what the GCC troops are there to do. The Sunni deputy chairman of Bahrain’s Parliament, Abdel al-Mowada told Al Jazeera: “It is not a lack of security forces in Bahrain, it is a showing of solidarity among the GCC. I don’t know if they are going to be in the streets or save certain areas  ... [but protesters] blocking the roads are no good for anyone, we should talk. The government is willing to get together and make the changes needed, but when the situation is like this, you cannot talk.”

The opposition is enraged. Wifaq described the arrival as a “blatant occupation” and the Bahrain Center for Human Rights declared, “This is an internal issue and we will consider it as an occupation.” It’s hard to overemphasize the power of the word  “occupation” in Arab politics, given its ties to the Palestinian Territories and Iraq.

The Saudi move — and although the GCC seems to be lined up, the impetus is likely from Riyadh — to shore up the Khalifa family is terribly shortsighted, but comprehensible in context. Bahrain is in Saudi Arabia’s near abroad. The relatively loose laws of Bahrain have allowed it to serve as a Las Vegas equivalent, where Saudis can drink and pursue other anti-Wahhabist pleasures.

Why then are the Saudis so concerned? The Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, like Bahrain, is majority Shia. If the Khalifa monarchy were to go constitutional, it might embolden Saudi Arabia’s Shia population. The rising tide of popular revolution has made the Saudi monarchy more reactionary than it might be under other circumstances. In other words, the Saudis are as worried about a democratic constitutional monarchy Bahrain as they are about a radical Shia republic. The remote chance of a radical Shia takeover or an Iranian invasion is secondary.

Unfortunately, the intervention just put two cornerstones of American policy in contradiction. The Saudi alliance has been a cornerstone of U.S. policy since 1931. The hosting of the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain has, since 1971, run a close second. The Naval presence, however, requires Bahrain to be stable, under whatever form of government. American policy in Bahrain has recently moved towards support for a full constitutional monarchy as the best way to preserve stability. But the creation of a constitutional monarchy conflicts with what Riyadh considers to be a core interest.

Intervention is a bad short term solution to a long term problem. Even under the rubric of the GCC, the arrival of foreign troops en masse is a profoundly poor idea. Bahraini politics have had a violent undercurrent for the past decade, and the citizenry is not going to take kindly to foreign forces clearing the streets. It raises the stakes between the King and the opposition, and may give the conflict a more overtly sectarian cast. It also adds to the pressures pushing the opposition towards republicanism. Moreover, the economy of Bahrain is going to take a serious hit with Saudi tanks in the streets, and given that it’s mostly financial services, it’s vulnerable to a collapse in foreign confidence. Finally, the move is going to encourage Iran. The former has longstanding territorial disputes with Bahrain and may take the chance to take a swipe at those and claim responsibility for the Shia opposition, which is currently fiercely anti-Iranian.

Far from a clever countermove against a nefarious Iranian scheme, Riyadh has just made a touchy situation significantly worse. An optimistic view has the liberal forces in Bahrain using the breathing spell to create a constitutional democracy. Saudi fears of dominoes prove unfounded, and everyone relaxes. A pessimistic view has GCC troops shooting Shia in the streets. In that case, Iranian covert operations would gain an opening, and the United States would once again find itself trapped on the side of the villians. The Saudi coordination of several longstanding U.S. Gulf allies against American interests is going to require substantial finesse from Washington.

American dependence on Saudi Arabia for diplomatic support and resources can’t be ended over this move, but it’s a bad position for the United States.

Comments

[Will Baird]

well, shibbit.

That's not far off from what I feared.

[Luke the S]

This is ten pounds of crazy stuffed into a five pound bag, with stupid sparklers sticking out of it.

The real problem is that Bahrain's citizenry have a lot more information and fiberoptic infrastructure than, say, Egypt, and the GCC has rivalries both political and dynastic within it.

[Will Baird]

Except that the GCC troops are mostly Saudi, right? Will they flinch when it comes to to pull the trigger?

[Luke the S]

The core of the troops sent over are, but half again as many UAE cops are there. BUT the Kuwaitis aren't thrilled with the use of the GCC this way, and the Qataris hate the Khalifas, and may rather see the dynasty fall than rescue it.

The Saudis appear to have communicated within the GCC that their intervention is to preempt the Iranians, and so far, Saudi troops are securing the Khalifas and key economic/military points. BUT members of the Bahraini government have mumbled about using the Saudi troops to clear the streets.

No, I don't think that they'd flinch when it came to shooting.

[Will Baird]

Does this signal that the Saudis are stepping up to try to rival the Iranians on their own and in their own way?

[Luke the S]

That's more or less been their stance since 1979 (hence support for Iraq in 1980, the creation of the GCC, mediation on the Lebanese Civil War).

Iraq's collapse into failed state in 2003 made the jockeying for influence and leverage overt and confrontations direct (as has Saudi/GCC cooperation with Israel, which is on the wane for the moment) as Iran moved into a vacuum.

This is the Saudis acting outside of their alliance with the US to try to manage a couple of fears: 1) a violent check on growing Iranian power 2) a check against democratization (which would put an end to the House of Saud) 3) the rise of Shi'a political agency on Saudi borders.

Ironically, if they'd invaded Yemen and killed off the Houthis, fewer people would know, care, and it would probably secure Saudi Arabia in the above regards. This is the most clumsy execution of those interests (anywhere where the Saudis see democracy and Shia they see the Revolutionary Guard, like a Jacobin band or something)