Bahrain: The threat of a cataclysmic.

Bahrain: The threat of a cataclysmic.

 

Bahrain is a tiny dot far in the world. It is a land of lies, or banana, or artificial. Is a major U.S. naval base, the V Fleet, but Bahrain is not there for that. Djibouti is not the African or Caribbean Curaçao, whose natures are more dependent policies local geopolitics of its own history. Is an important region of ancient cultures, which currently dominates the Shi'a. But also:


Bahrain may be the beginning of a war of cataclysmic proportions.


We will try to explain.


When I was a child collect stamps (seals) of Bahrain, formerly known simply as its main city, Manama, because that was part of the UAE. When divided into the 70, the new Bahrain inherited from the UAE and Saudi Arabia, a dominant caste: Although 70% of the population is Shiite, like the Iranians, the Bahraini government, armed forces, ministries all important management positions in oil production, refining, alumina processing, tourism ... are controlled by Sunnis.


Shiites simply can not come to power. Only have access to Parliament. But as in other Muslim countries, a parliament is disabled, the shadow of the real power that resides in the oil revenue and holding the King Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa. Descendant of the Sunni Al Khalifa UAE.


The Shiites have made clear for years: do not want to be dominated by Sunnis. And they are not alone. The Iranians have called for them not only their brotherhood with the Shiites, but the ownership of the archipelago of Bahrain. Iran's territorial claim has been discussed and settled several times, like a Pandora's box, always comes back.


Unlike the Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon, or Iraq's Shi'ite militancy, the Shia of Bahrain calling for democracy. Such a democracy would allow them to control a country in which the majority and, of course, would undermine and arrinconaría Sunni power. This democracy was offered 8 years ago by the same King Hamad but nothing has happened since.


The point is that the Sunnis are not alone. The Saudis would not hesitate to intervene in Bahrain if the King is the situation out of hand. At least, that's the fear that the BBC transmits the analysis of Gala Riani (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12471243).


Another trigger: Bahrain is one of the countries with the highest human development in the world, and with a high level of satisfaction with the functioning of their societal networks (http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2010_ES_Complete.pdf). But make no mistake: no crime or civil strife ever born of poverty pure and simple. Not born of economic necessity, but the perception of inequality. The perception of inequality is associated with the trigger for excellence in every conflict: frustration [1].


Another trigger: To avoid the presence of Shiites in the police, their police Bahrain imported from other Sunni towns such as Yemen, Syria and Pakistan. This made them a sort of mercenary, soon involved with social dissent. The Bahraini on the street are repressed, injured and killed by foreigners.


Other: The repression does not look decrease but increase. At present some Shiite neighborhoods are flown by helicopters, and gunfire are heard repeatedly during the night. Repression is larger than that recognized international chambers.


One mitigating factor: Protests still have a liberal character produced by the convening youth and social networking. Bahraini Shiites share the road with the Sunnis who are also out of power. Both seem to understand that the benefits of a welfare state must include all Bahraini alike.


So these are the scenarios, the simplest, but at the moment, the most compelling:


Scenario 1: The Rise decides to promote changes that mean the transfer of power to the Shiite civil society. This causes annoyance in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Internal balances are guaranteed to significant costs in their natural allies. Though the King to maintain its mandate (an increasingly unlikely scenario, but not impossible), the U.S. find that their fleet is stationed in a country with historical, ethnic and religious ties with Iran. The volatility is too dangerous for the alliance between the U.S. and Sunni kings.


This scenario would create a chain of events that must be analyzed at the time.


Scenario 2: The Rise yields to pressure from its allies and speed enforcement, despite all this raises fears in Western investors. The U.S. call for democracy, but they know that even a transition to Egypt would find it convenient. To the frustration of civil society, women dressed in black and bloody, Iran intervenes and offers political support. Bahrain Iran serves to channel domestic discontent by the urgency of solidarity intraethnic, atiimperialista supremacist. Sunni Kings take on the appearance of Israel, as appropriate macabre ghosts appear when the Arab dictatorships are weakened (a phenomenon that in some Arab commentators called "Israeli opium"). And the possession of the archipelago moved becomes the most important geopolitical XXI century ...


Consider the map:

 

Persian Gulf-to-Bahrein.jpg

 

The largest oilfield in the world is one that extends from the River Indus to the Euphrates, and sums the proximity of the Iberian Peninsula. All that oil passes through the Persian Gulf.

 

Check this step is essential for the balance of the entire global system. The maritime boundary in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula is an extremely precarious balance that defines the nature of conflict in the Middle East, from Iraq to Palestine.


This very gently confronted border separates the economic system of two mortal enemies who have sought to annihilate since the overthrow of Mossadeq in 1953, the invasion of Iraq and the Israeli bombing of southern Lebanon, 56 years later.


The mere presence of Iran in Bahrain, helping unconditionally frustrated civil society, in the center of Sunni power in the middle of the oilfields in the world, on the island where the V Fleet stationed U.S., the U.S. would Sunni kings and the duty to stimulate extraordinary measures from negotiating with Bahraini movement (even without structure, making arrangements to have little strength in the political field) to its simple suffocation.


In addition, containment of this problem any longer, cause the radicalization of social, religious and political of the whole region of Shiite origin, multifaceted, and that have been nesting among the very many Shiites in Iraq, southern Lebanon Southern Saudi Arabia and Kuwait itself.


The sequence of these processes is not easily predictable, but the scenario of violence antisunita, anti-Christian and anti-Jewish history has many immediate. Antichiíta violence also has been brutal and often state, just as there are important precedents in the history of Islam since the time of the Ismailis in the tenth century and beyond [2].


Bahrain has everything to turn the world into a cataclysmic.


Egypt would not be more than a baby with the potential for conflict scenarios that are played in the small Bahrain.

 

 

 

[1] So Virgin Islands, Caribbean territory free of U.S. tax paradise for the purchase and sale of gold and where there is poor, however, the region with more crime per capita. Therefore there was more violence in the Balkans than in Burkina Faso.

 

[2] Only by remembering an anecdote: it was exactly in Bahrain radicals in 900 Ismaili take by force the black stone in Mecca, pilgrims massacred in their time of pilgrimage and loot Medina, and not returned as pillaged until 50 years later. When the stone finally returned to Mecca, is split into 7 pieces, until today (http://www.philtar.ac.uk/encyclopedia/islam/shia/qarma.html.).

The Iranians are heirs of Ayatollah mystical Ismailism spread throughout the Arab world in the following centuries.