PrintDecember 22, 2007
Iran's threat to Bahrain
Yesterday, Ed Lasky commented on Iran's threat to Bahrain
"Iran is now an imperial power whose desire is to extend its hegemony across the region. We have seen it flex its muscle throughout area: in Lebanon, where it has sent weapons, personnel, and money to Hezbollah"
And:
"There has been a history of riots by Shiites in Bahrain in the past; the death of Bahrain's leading Shiite cleric at this time last year may have left a power vacuum being filled by Iranian-inspired and funded radicals."
Bottom Line: The Iranians have tried this type of thing before in Bahrain during the early 1990's (92-94ish). As an aside, US basing agreements for the 5th Fleet were concluded in October 1991 (Coincidence......no way). What occurred was that the IRGC was involved in recruiting Bahraini nationals in Bahrain and Iran's holy city of Qom. They then had them trained in a series of IRGC camps in Iran and later in Hizballah camps in Lebanon. The IRGC then provided money, weapons, and direction to those recruits/trainees in hopes of overthrowing the Bahraini government. As the IRGC began to turn them loose in Bahrain, the Bahraini security services basically apprehended 34 of the 39 Bahraini ring leaders in a series of arrests. That pretty much gutted Iran's attempts to promote Shia violence in the country. One of the reasons why we know so much about this particular event was because the Bahraini government put six of these individuals on Bahrain Television and where they proceeded to spell out where they were recruited, who recruited them, where they were trained, what they were trained in, and what their intentions were. Furthermore, if you take that information and compare it to the Khobar Tower indictment, the recruitment and training schemes are identical. On a number of different levels, this demonstrates that Iran is a creature a habit.
To say Iran's Bahraini and Saudi "activities" cooled relations between Iran and the Gulf would be a bit of an understatement. Iranian subversive activities have had a lasting impression on the Gulf region which is one reason there have been recent calls to form an anti-Iran front in the Gulf.
