{"id":6259,"date":"2012-02-23T18:16:36","date_gmt":"2012-02-24T01:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=6259"},"modified":"2012-02-23T18:15:11","modified_gmt":"2012-02-24T01:15:11","slug":"bahrain%e2%80%99s-internal-coup-iain-lindsay-out-of-his-depth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=6259","title":{"rendered":"Bahrain\u2019s internal coup, UK Ambassador, Iain Lindsay out of his depth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bahrain\u2019s internal coup, Iain Lindsay out of his depth<\/strong>
\nDr Mike Diboll – 23 February, 2012<\/p>\n

Two items from today\u2019s English language propaganda sheet the Gulf Daily News. The first is today\u2019s front page story, about spending cuts in Bahrain:<\/p>\n

Gulf Daily Article<\/a><\/p>\n

Unelected Khalifa Al Khalifa, at 41 years in office the world\u2019s longest-serving prime minister, apparently \u201cissued directives to downsize official delegations for events which do not require high-level participation\u201d. The high-level meeting also \u201cdiscussed Bahrain\u2019s financial policies and the current fiscal situation\u201d and \u201cstressed the necessary to engage radical structural reforms\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not perhaps the most riveting story. However, I\u2019m wondering exactly what public spending the PM might have his eye on. I suspect this spells the beginning of the end for the EDB, 2030, and the range of structures parallel to the official Bahrain state which the Crown Prince tried to erect to see through his reform agenda. Of course, nothing will can be seen to have failed or been wound down, I\u2019m sure the 2030 institutions will continue to live on in the shadowland of websites, logos, and PR. But this is, I suspect, their death-knell as effective institutions. Ditto Gulf Air, which is disliked for sectarian reasons.<\/p>\n

Thus, the hardliners\u2019 internal coup against reform continues, a coup the beginning of which I witnessed during 2010. Who\u2019s there too stop it? Certainly not Our Man in Manama Iain Lindsay, who seems to have confused his role as Her Majesty\u2019s Ambassador to Bahrain with that of regime PR man. Lindsay\u2019s eyes aren\u2019t on the internal coup that\u2019s currently doing so much harm to Bahrain, but on the regime\u2019s fantasy coup, you know, Bahrain-is-not-part-of-the-Arab-Spring-it\u2019s-all-an-Iranian-backed-coup-against-a-pro-Western-ally. Yawn\u2026: …more<\/a><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bahrain\u2019s internal coup, Iain Lindsay out of his depth Dr Mike Diboll – 23 February, 2012 Two items from today\u2019s English language propaganda sheet the Gulf Daily News. The first is today\u2019s front page story, about spending cuts in Bahrain: Gulf Daily Article Unelected Khalifa Al Khalifa, at 41 years in office the world\u2019s longest-serving 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":[2545],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6259"}],"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=6259"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6283,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6259\/revisions\/6283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}