Iran Sauce June 12, 2024 Print this page
Will Bahrain and Iran turn a new page? There is talk of that.
Giorgio Cafiero
During a visit to Moscow on May 23, Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa told Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country had “no reason to delay normalizing relations” with Iran. The king also said there were no longer any problems between Manama and Tehran. “We are seeking to establish normal diplomatic, trade and cultural relations with Iran,” King Hamad explained, conveying the same message to Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Beijing eight days later.
Earlier this month, Bahrain formally asked Russia to help facilitate the normalization of relations with Iran. This is significant, given that Bahrain’s ruling establishment has perceived Iran as a significant threat since the 1979 revolution. On April 8, King Hamad pardoned 1,584 prisoners, many of whom had been held during the 2011 Arab Spring movement. Then-Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani attended the funeral of President Ebrahim Raisi on May 22, after King Hamad sent his condolences to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. These moves earned the Arab royals goodwill in Tehran.
The detente in the Bahrain-Iran situation and their increased willingness to engage with each other is best understood in the context of regional developments over the past few years. The detente in the Persian Gulf, specifically the improvement in relations between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iran, has created an environment for a greater relaxation of relations between Bahrain and Iran.
In March 2023, Saudi Arabia and Iran normalized diplomatic relations with the support of Oman and Iraq through a China-brokered agreement after a seven-year, two-month severance. The UAE and Iran restored full diplomatic relations in 2022 after Abu Dhabi downgraded its bilateral relations with Tehran in 2016. Saudi Arabia and the UAE determined that their security and economic interests would be advanced by increasing dialogue with Iran as both Persian Gulf states focused on domestic development and economic diversification. For Iran, improved relations with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states factored into the Raisi administration’s “Neighborhood First” strategy, which aimed to reduce Tehran’s regional isolation as a means to counter the effects of Western sanctions.
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For Bahrain, which takes its foreign policy guidance from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, it makes sense to follow in the footsteps of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in its relations with Iran. Yet even if Bahrain and Iran normalize again this year, distrust and suspicion will likely remain in their relationship.
Historical threat perceptions towards Tehran
To understand why Bahrain’s royal family views the Islamic Republic as a predatory state, one needs to go back to the tumultuous period following the Iranian Revolution of 1979. With Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his supporters calling for exporting the Islamic Revolution abroad, Bahrain’s Sunni authorities in Shiite-majority countries felt particularly vulnerable to Iran’s highly ideological foreign policy in the midst of revolutionary fervor in the 1980s.
Bahraini authorities were not paranoid. In 1981, the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain (IFLB) attempted to establish a “free Islamic order” and expel US troops from the Persian Gulf islands, but the coup failed. Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Taqi al-Modareshi founded the ILFB in Iran, and its attempt to expel the Khalifa family in Bahrain marked a major shift in GCC officials’ perception of the proxy threat posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Then, in 1996, Manama authorities again accused Iran of plotting a new coup in Bahrain.
In 2011, the Shiite-dominated Arab Spring uprising broke out in Bahrain, threatening the stability and even survival of the regime. Whether Iran was directly involved will be discussed in another article. However, the Iranian government at least provided moral support to the Bahraini people who were seeking major change. Manama and other GCC countries saw Iranian involvement in the Bahraini Arab Spring movement and intervened militarily to put down the protesters.
Since 2011, some hardline Shiites, such as Saraya al-Mukhtar, also known as the Islamic Resistance Forces of Bahrain, have been carrying out violent acts in Bahrain. Formed in 2013, Saraya al-Mukhtar receives logistical support from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to Washington. Deeming the group a threat to U.S. interests, the State Department designated it a terrorist organization in 2020, a designation it gave to another Bahraini Shiite group, the Iran-backed Al-Ashtar Brigades, in 2018.
Beyond sectarian and ideological factors, Iranian authorities, both before and since 1979, have claimed Bahrain on the basis of its history of Persian rule over the archipelago dating back to ancient times. In 1957, the Iranian parliament under the rule of King Mohammad Reza Pahlavi passed a bill recognising Bahrain as Iran’s 14th province (Mishmahig), raising concerns in Arab capitals and London about the shah’s hegemonic ambitions. However, by 1970, Tehran had recognised Bahrain’s independence in line with UN Security Council Resolution 278.
However, in 1980, Ayatollah Sadeq Rouhani stated that Iran’s recognition of Bahrain’s independence ten years earlier was invalid because it had taken place under the rule of the Shah. By the early 1980s, Iranian authorities were discussing the repression of Shiite Muslims in the Gulf Arab kingdoms, and Khomeini’s revolutionary plans prompted pro-Iranian demonstrations among some of Bahrain’s Shiite population.
At least until recently, Iranian state media has continued to push a narrative about Iranian sovereignty over Bahrain, which Iran finds particularly unsettling, often as a way to keep the leadership in Manama on edge amid rising tensions between Saudi Arabia and Tehran, particularly in the aftermath of Bahrain’s normalization of diplomatic ties with Israel in 2020.
What’s next?
Bahrain was one of several Arab countries that completely severed diplomatic ties with Iran after mobs stormed Saudi diplomatic missions in Tehran and Mashhad in reaction to Riyadh’s execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr in 2016. Bahrain, which relies heavily on Saudi financial and security support, unsurprisingly showed solidarity with Riyadh in the incident. Bahrain pledged to support Saudi-led Arab efforts to increase pressure on Iran after the attacks.
Yet Saudi Arabia and Iran’s restoration of diplomatic relations in March 2023 dramatically eased Saudi pressure on Bahrain to maintain a tough stance against Iran. Similarly, Sudan, another country financially dependent on Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, severed ties with Iran during the 2016 Saudi-Iranian crisis but normalized relations with the country seven months after Riyadh and Tehran signed a diplomatic agreement in Beijing. Similarly, the detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran opened the door to improved relations between Egypt and Iran.
It is worth noting that Oman has been an important bridge between Bahrain and Iran. Muscat has long been a bridge between other Arab and Western countries on the one hand and Tehran on the other. Last year, King Haitham visited Manama to discuss the process of repairing relations between the neighboring countries.
Of the five GCC countries that took diplomatic action against Iran in 2016, only Bahrain has not retracted its actions against Iran amid the crisis as of this writing. Normalization of Bahrain-Iran relations would be the final stage in the process of overcoming the total GCC-Iran rift since early 2016. Similarly, among the anti-Qatar bloc Arab states, it was Bahrain that was the last to reconcile with Doha after the 2017-2021 blockade was lifted at the 2021 Al-Ula summit.
While other GCC states tend to see the Iranian threat primarily as a matter of the regional balance of power, to Bahrain’s ruling elite the Islamic Republic represents nothing less than an existential threat to the country’s security and the survival of the Manama regime, so it is understandable why Bahrain has moved at the slowest pace among GCC states toward renormalization with Tehran.
Given Bahrain’s domestic situation, it is reasonable to expect that detente between Bahrain and Iran will not be as profound as detente between Saudi Arabia or the UAE and Tehran. Normalization of Bahrain-Iran relations may lack substantive content and will be mainly about restraint of rhetoric.
A sign of real progress would be for Iranian state media to stop challenging Bahrain’s territorial integrity and independence. It would also be a sign of progress for Iran to cut ties with hard-line and extremist elements in Bahrain. Without such changes by Iran, there is every reason to question what normalization of diplomatic relations can accomplish from the Bahraini government’s perspective.
On the Iranian side, Bahrain’s ties with the United States and Israel put Tehran in an extremely vulnerable position. While it is doubtful that Bahrain will stop hosting the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet or abandon its normalization agreement with Tel Aviv, Bahrain could take steps to demonstrate its commitment to improved ties with Tehran by ensuring that its territory cannot be used by any foreign power for military action against Iran or its regional allies. A more tolerant Bahraini government toward moderates in the Shiite opposition and the release of more political prisoners would also be a sign of improved ties with Iran.
It’s probably hard to imagine either side taking such a step, but it’s not impossible.
Giorgio Cafiero is CEO of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington, DC-based geopolitical risk consulting firm, and an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University.
References
Photo: Iranian President Mohammed Khatami welcomes Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa upon his arrival on a landmark visit to the Islamic Republic of Iran on August 17, 2002. King Hamad’s visit marks the first visit to Iran by a Bahraini leader in more than 20 years. REUTERS/Stringer
