A Tale of Two Repressions: Bahrain and Syria

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.

Leon Wieseltier, as best I can gather, has said nothing about Bahrain, though it is possible that he addressed the topic in an off the record lecture he gave in December. Wieseltier, even by the standards of political pundits, is known for his loquaciousness and he hasn’t exactly been shy about expressing his opinions on other issues, as a quick glance at his writing on Libya clearly so clearly demonstrates, so his silence is all the more baffling.**

Pryce-Jones has mentioned Bahrain several times but hasn’t had anything substantive to say, though I will give him credit for criticizing the Iranians for their hypocrisy on the matter. You see those dastardly Persians objected to the treatment of protesters in Bahrain even though they themselves have committed similar crimes. Can you imagine the nerve it takes to do something like that?

Unlike the others, Abrams, at least, saw fit to go into a fair bit of detail about Bahrain, writing numerous posts about the crackdown, including one that bemoaned the Obama administration’s gross hypocrisy. However, as best I can tell, Abrams didn’t really advocate doing anything. The harshest language he was able to summon wasn’t even about the murder of dozens of peaceful protesters, but about the shabby treatment of an American diplomat, treatment he said should “have us thinking out loud about the future of the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain.” On the spectrum of action and inaction “thinking out loud” is, of course, far closer to “doing nothing” than it is to “starting a war.”

Abrams position is perfectly in keeping with the way in which interventionists attempt to deflect the inevitable accusations of hypocrisy: he doesn’t actually defend the actions of the Bahraini government (to do so would be in decidedly bad taste) but he also doesn’t propose any concrete actions. The United States should fret and frown, and maybe even have the State Department release a very stern and strongly-worded statement to the press, but certainly shouldn’t do anything rash like providing armaments to the opposition much less starting a campaign of “targeted air strikes.”

Compare the antiseptic, anodyne, and almost pro-forma descriptions of Bahrain with just some of what has been said about Syria.
Here’s Pryce-Jones:
““To arm the Free Syrian Army is self-defense, as it may be the only measure still available to prevent the Syrian civil war from swelling and bursting from a regional issue into an international crisis.”

And here’s Abrams:
“The key issue in Syria today is who will win — our side or the opposing side, which is a real axis of evil. This isn’t about the exact confessional balance of those opposing Assad, or the exact provisions of the next Syrian constitution. All those questions will come with victory against the bad guys — but only with victory.

And here’s Wieseltier:

“We should aid and arm the Free Syrian Army, perhaps with the Saudis and the Qataris and Obama’s regional idol Erdogan, and offer protection to the parts of the country that they control. We should immiserate the Assad regime economically and banish it to a North Korean purgatory diplomatically. Like the army proposed by the Pentagon, we must be “agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies.”

I raise all of this because, even though within the “serious” American foreign policy establishment there is virtually no discussion about how unbelievably hypocritical and self-serving we appear, others, particularly the Russians, are not so easily fooled. They can readily discern that our noble-sounding claims about interest in “democracy” are palpably fraudulent – one of our closest regional allies, Saudi Arabia, is one of the most brutally repressive regimes on the planet, and we have repeatedly shielded other allies, including Bahrain, from any consequences for actions that, when committed in unfriendly countries, have been cited as causes for war.
So even though our gross double standards regarding Bahrain and Syria might appear, at first glance, to be totally unrelated to our relationship with Russia they are actually quite important because of the suspicion and paranoia they inevitably breed.
The Russians do not appreciate being excoriated, mocked, and vilified for doing something, shielding a nasty regional ally, that we do every day. Lastly, the Russians, the Chinese, and other rising powers like predictability, and an America that weaponizes a concept as nebulous as “democracy” is the very opposite of predictable: there can be no clearly defined rules for promoting such a concept since the term itself is subject to so much debate.
Some degree of hypocrisy is probably inevitable in the execution of foreign policy, but the strident, almost gleeful, hypocrisy of American foreign policy in the Middle East is dangerous not only for its effects on the region itself (which are considerable) but because it slowly poisons America’s relationships with a number of other countries.


* If, like Assad, you are forced to use heavy artillery to break up mass demonstrations and that still doesn’t work the jig is basically up
** It is also possible that, due to the New Republic’s abysmal website and unfortunate habit of placing most of its content behind a pay wall that Wieseltier has in fact said something about Bahrain. However, I looked in good faith for more than 30 minutes and wasn’t able to turn up anything. If anyone knows of anything he’s said on the topic I will immediately update the post to reflect that.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2012/02/13/a-tale-of-two-repressions-bahrain-and-syria/2/