Foreign Policy Contradicitons, Inhuman Violence and Repression: Bahrain and Syria

A Tale of Two Repressions: Bahrain and Syria
13 February, 2012 – Forbes – Mark Abdomanbis

Russia’s continued support of Bashar Al-Assad has provoked a chorus of outrage from across the political spectrum – Democrats, Republicans, progressives, conservatives, almost everyone has been falling over themselves to denounce Russian perfidy in ever more hysterical terms. US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, in particular, has been so openly acrimonious and condescending that I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to wake up tomorrow morning and read that she had labeled her Russian counterpart, Vitaly Churkin, “a real douchebag.”

Of course, the critics of Russia’s Syria policy have a point. Russia’s continued support of Syria’s embattled and bloodstained regime really is appalling and, more than that, seems to be rather pointless: it’s hard to see how Assad is going to be able to hold on to power for more than another few months regardless of what happens in the UN security council.* One can, of course, note that Russia has significant long-term geopolitical interests in Syria, sizable weapons contracts and the presence of a warm-water naval base in Tartus, but these seem rather trifling and empty observations in an environment where innocent civilians are being gunned down en masse.

But what seems quite noteworthy is that many of the people who are now loudly demanding that the United States “do something” in Syria, and who are using Russia’s support for Syria as proof that the Russians are little better than barbarians, were almost entirely silent in the case of a brutal and lethal crackdown on a popular protest movement in another Middle Eastern country: Bahrain.

In symmetry that seems almost too perfect, much as Syria is a significant consumer of Russian weapons and hosts a Russian naval base, Bahrain is a significant consumer of American weapons and hosts an American naval base. While it is true that the crackdown in Bahrain wasn’t nearly as lethal as the ongoing crackdown in Syria, it was nonetheless exceedingly nasty and brutal with dozens of protesters killed by security forces, several tortured to death, and the creation of a general atmosphere of government impunity and terror (particularly vile was the regime’s targeting of hospitals treating the wounded). Although the Bahraini government has made a big show of “reform,” and in classic fashion has commissioned a report, admitted that “mistakes were made,” and punished a few low-level functionaries, the government continues to brutalize protesters and has reluctantly consented to constitutional reforms that are exceedingly modest and amount to little more than a reshuffling of deck chairs.

Before proceeding further it is necessary to note that the United States is far better positioned to influence Bahrain than it is to influence Syria. Bahrain is a close ally and dependent of the United States and has long relied on American weaponry and American support to guard its security. Syria, on the other hand, has had awful relations with the United States for decades and there are no economic or security relationships to speak of. So while the presence of the Fifth Fleet gives the United States an enormous amount of leverage over Bahrain, the “levers” it has at its disposal with Syria are so weak as to be non-existent.

Having read articles from people like Leon Wieseltier, Anne Applebaum, Eliot Abrams, and David Pryce-Jones that either directly call for Western intervention in Syria or loudly bemoan Russian intransigence in supporting Assad (Pryce-Jones were perhaps the most colorful when he said that Sergei Lavrov is “a man as cold and mendacious as any commissar from Soviet times”), I thought I would do a little bit of digging to see how these paragons of morality in foreign policy, people who consider Russian inaction in Syria to be uniquely revolting, dealt with the brutal and violent suppression of the protests in Bahrain.

Applebaum has had almost nothing to say about the brutal crackdown in Bahrain – she mentioned it in passing in an article last February and approvingly noted that the Bahraini crown prince had been disinvited from the royal wedding in an April blog post. As best I can gather from scouring the intertubes, that’s all she’s had to say about it, it just apparently is not a topic that interests her despite her history of deep involvement with and advocacy of democracy promotion. …more