Bahrain is the smallest Arab country in terms of surface area, and the least populous after Qatar. Nevertheless, the Western media, in particular the newspapers in London where I live, have given Bahrain wall-to-wall coverage, as though the issue involved a major country like China. In London, the Guardian and the Independent took the side of the Bahraini opposition. The liberalism of both papers overshadowed all other considerations, to the extent that their coverage was in many instances unbalanced. Yet, before I continue, I would like to note here that the Guardian is my favorite British paper and I was introduced to it by Mrs. Gillett, the Managing Director of Reuters in Beirut in the sixties, when I was a student and an editor. The Independent, meanwhile, was first published after I moved to London and I have been reading this paper since its early days. Both papers employ some professional journalists of the highest possible caliber. I took all my newspapers from London on my way to Jeddah last Monday, and then returned to London on Wednesday, having read what I had missed while travelling. In short, there was a story that occupied a full page in the Guardian on Monday, and another that took two pages in the Independent. Then on Tuesday, there was another on Bahrain in the Guardian, taking up half of two pages. After that, I think the riots in London and other English cities preoccupied the two papers, distracting them away from Bahrain until further notice. However, the two papers and others will probably resume their coverage of the developments in Bahrain as soon as possible. The Bahraini opposition has legitimate demands. I had said this before and I reiterate it today; but I wish that the opposition, as represented by Al-Wefaq group, had chosen a different path than confrontation with the government, and had steered clear from extremists like Hassan Mushaima and the Al-Haq group, which is nothing more than an Iranian fifth column. The problem is that the discourse among Bahrain's opposition, following Mushaima's return from London, was not dominated by Al-Wefaq, which we respect and revere, but by mutineers who candidly called for the downfall of the regime, and I heard them myself in Lulu Square. Mushaima started calling for the ouster of the regime, and dreamt of an Iranian-style Islamic Republic and Velayat-e faqi [clerical rule], before ending up in prison. The international press missed this seditionist aspect of the incidents in Bahrain, or did not give it its fair amount of coverage. I had expected more interest in the subject, because Britain had a key role in it, as Mushaima had returned to Bahrain from London. In truth, Mushaima's extremism reminded me of a Saudi doctor who had come to London as a dissident, and was soon embraced by the media to the extent that he appeared on a popular television show. However, it was revealed later that his opposition to the Saudi government was based on his belief that it did not govern in full accordance with Sharia. All news about the man and his activities then disappeared, and I have heard nothing about him ever since. I am still convinced that King Hamad bin Isa and Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad will offer the dissidents a lot at the dialogue table, and that the opposition would not achieve anything except through a straightforward and faithful national dialogue. I am not saying that the opposition will get everything. Instead, I say that it will get a lot, and all it has to do is wait for the chance to make further demands in the future. The King has appointed a fact-finding commission headed by the Egyptian-American Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni, a prominent and reputable jurist. This appointment alone is enough to demonstrate the ruler's good faith, and the recent start to release prisoners is another proof of this. I also expect him to release more prisoners, before the commission issues its report on the incidents next October, and I believe as well that this report would probably include a number of radical proposals to mend the situation. The real foe for the Shiites of Bahrain is Iran. I do not mean the Iranian people, but the regime, with its supreme leader and president, and with its extremism, demagoguery and ambitions that are all a source of concern for Iran's neighbors. I had once quoted a Foreign Minister from the Gulf in this column as saying, “We are prepared to go to war with Iran to defend ourselves, and with Iraq if its Shiite government supports Iran, even if this led to the partitioning of Iraq”. The minister said that his country is defending itself in Bahrain, and this view is also shared by Saudi Arabia, which dispatched 1200 soldiers there. These soldiers did not do anything there and then withdrew – and yet I read that they were an ‘occupation army'. Once again, I call on the brethren at Al-Wefaq to return to the dialogue table, first, because it is impossible for them to achieve anything by force, second, because the King and the Crown Prince intend to respond to all their reasonable demands, and third, because I wish only the best for all the people of Bahrain. [email protected]
