{"id":5965,"date":"2012-02-15T19:20:50","date_gmt":"2012-02-16T02:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=5965"},"modified":"2012-02-15T19:20:50","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T02:20:50","slug":"why-bahrain-is-not-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=5965","title":{"rendered":"Why Bahrain is not Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Why Bahrain is not Syria<\/strong><br \/>\n14 February, 2012 -nsnbc &#8211; By Pepe Escobar<\/p>\n<p>How poignant that the first anniversary of a true Arab pro-democracy movement in the Persian Gulf \u2013 then ruthlessly crushed \u2013 falls on February 14, when Valentine\u2019s Day is celebrated in the West. Talk about a doomed love affair.<\/p>\n<p>And how does Washington honor this tragic love story? By resuming arms sales to the repressive Sunni al-Khalifa dynasty in power in Bahrain.<\/p>\n<p>So just to recap; United States President Barack Obama told Syria\u2019s President Bashar al-Assad to \u201cstep aside and allow a democratic transition to proceed immediately\u201d while King Hamad al-Khalifa gets new toys to crack down on his subversively pro-democratic subjects.<\/p>\n<p>Is this a case of cognitive dissonance? Of course not; after all.<\/p>\n<p>Syria is supported by Russia and China at the United Nations Security Council while Bahrain hosts the US\u2019s Fifth Fleet \u2013 the defender of the \u201cfree world\u201d against those evil Iranians who want to shut down the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n<p>A year ago, the overwhelming population of Bahrain \u2013 most of them poor, neglected Shi\u2019ites treated as third-class citizens, but also educated Sunnis \u2013 hit the streets to demand the ruling al-Khalifas allow a minimum of democracy.<\/p>\n<p>Just like Tunisia and Egypt \u2013 and unlike Libya and Syria \u2013 the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain was indigenous, legitimate, non-violent and uncontaminated by Western or Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) infiltration.<\/p>\n<p>The response was a major crackdown plus a Saudi Arabian invasion over the causeway to Manama. That was the tacit result of a deal struck between the House of Saud and Washington; we give you an Arab resolution allowing you to go to the UN and then launch the North Atlantic Treaty Organization\u2019s humanitarian bombing on Libya, you leave us alone to smash this Arab Spring nonsense (see Exposed: the US-Saudi Libya deal Asia Times Online, April 2, 2011.)<\/p>\n<p>The Obama administration took no time to preempt the \u201ccelebration\u201d of Bahrain\u2019s crushed democracy push by dispatching a State Department honcho to Bahrain.<\/p>\n<p>As reported by the Gulf Daily News, the so-called \u201cVoice of Bahrain\u201d (more like the voice of the al-Khalifas), US Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Jeffrey Feltman widely praised King Hamad\u2019s steps to \u201cdiffuse tensions\u201d \u2013 such as \u201cthe release of political prisoners, a partial cabinet reshuffle and the withdrawal of security forces\u201d.  <a href=\"http:\/\/nsnbc.wordpress.com\/2012\/02\/14\/why-bahrain-is-not-syria\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8230;more<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D5965&amp;text=Why+Bahrain+is+not+Syria&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why Bahrain is not Syria 14 February, 2012 -nsnbc &#8211; By Pepe Escobar How poignant that the first anniversary of a true Arab pro-democracy movement in the Persian Gulf \u2013 then ruthlessly crushed \u2013 falls on February 14, when Valentine\u2019s Day is celebrated in the West. Talk about a doomed love affair. And how does <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=5965#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[1443],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5965"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5965"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5967,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5965\/revisions\/5967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}