Editorials

Bahrain's injustice

10/7/2011

For months, Bahrain has posed a difficult problem for the United States: how to balance America's support for the democratic surges of the Arab Spring with old-time military relationships.

Bahrain's monarchy tipped the balance last month when it handed down severe prison sentences to doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel who treated injured demonstrators during the anti-government protests that took place there in February and March.

But on the other side of the scales, the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain. The military would argue that the base is needed to sustain a credible force in the Persian Gulf to protect U.S. client states and military bases in the region from the threat presented by Iran.

Fifty-eight percent of the 1.2 million people in Bahrain are noncitizen workers from South and East Asia and poorer Arab countries. They do most of the work, including at the U.S. base. The rest are Bahrainis divided between the royals, who are Sunni Muslims and represent 12 percent of total population, and a larger group of Shiites who are largely excluded from political power and constitute 30 percent of the population.

The power struggle among Bahrainis is basically between the ruling Sunni minority and the Shiite majority. Saudi Arabia also has a stake in the game. It is linked to the island by a causeway, and when things heated up in Bahrain in the spring, the Saudis sent security forces across the causeway to maintain the status quo.

Saudi Arabia's ruling family was concerned that Bahrain's Shiites are supported by Saudi rival Iran and that protests might spread to Saudi Arabia. They also face their own modest stirrings of Arab Spring, including women who want to vote and drive and Saudi citizens who want more voice in government.

Unless Bahrain's leaders commit to major reforms, the United States should consider whether keeping the 5th Fleet there is worth the association with that country's increasingly sharp injustice.