On Wednesday, the United States signed a new security and economic agreement with the Kingdom of Bahrain.
On Wednesday, the United States signed a new security and economic agreement with the Kingdom of Bahrain.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said upon the signature of the agreement that he hoped it would be a model for updating our relations in the region. “We’re looking forward to using this agreement as a framework for additional countries that may wish to join us in strengthening regional stability, economic cooperation and technological innovation,” Blinken said.
Blinken almost surely means Saudi Arabia and other states that have signed the Abraham Accords.
My question is: Does anyone object to this on the grounds that Bahrain is one of the most repressive authoritarian states in the Middle East?
Freedom House names Bahrain as an unfree country, and says that since its brutal crackdown on a pro-democracy protest in 2011, “The Sunni-led monarchy has systematically eliminated a broad range of political rights and civil liberties, dismantled the political opposition, and cracked down harshly on persistent dissent in the Shiite population.”
I ask, because as a critic of the general direction of American foreign policy, I’m constantly dealing with accusations that because I don’t want to get involved in one conflict or another, I somehow love Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad, or Vladimir Putin. Or that I don’t take human rights seriously enough. And don’t I know what they do to journalists in Moscow?
So is sauce for the goose good for the gander? Do I get to call my sparring partners in these debates admirers of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and the torture he subjects religious minorities and political dissidents to? Do I get to call supporters of our foreign policy people who love the idea of chopping up American journalists with a bonesaw, as Mohammad bin Salman’s thugs did with Jamal Khashoggi?
Really, the grimy moral oil slick should run faster toward people who support these alliances, right? Since they involve the use of U.S. tax dollars, security arrangements, or economic deals that make us more complicit in the internal suppression that Saudi Arabia and Bahrain inflict. My form of restraint doesn’t argue for supporting Putin or Assad in any tangible way.
Or does this form of demagoguery only work one way?
I think I know the answer.