Bahrain to U.S.: Stand up to Iran

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By David Ignatius

Bahrain’s foreign minister has a pointed message for President Obama: You’ve denounced Iran’s plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington and warned that Iran “will pay a price.” But what is the U.S. actually going to do about Iran to show that it’s serious?

“We’re asking the U.S. to stand up for its interests and draw the red lines,” Sheikh Khalid Al-Khalifa, the Bahraini foreign minister told me. He referred to Iran-sponsored attacks on American forces in Lebanon and Iraq and asked: “How many times have you lost lives, been subject to terrorist activities and yet we haven’t seen any proper response. This is really serious. It’s coming to your shores now.”

Khalifa’s worries about American power echo what you read these days in the Arab press, and hear privately from Arab officials. But the Bahraini official, who’s in Washington this week talking to U.S. officials, was unusually blunt in the interview at his hotel suite.

To underline what he saw as the seriousness of the Iranian threat in the Gulf, Khalifa noted that Bahraini intelligence was familiar with the activities of Ali Gholam Shakuri, a Quds Force operative who was indicted last week for his alleged role in the assassination plot.

“This man is not new to us,” Khalifa said. He explained that months before the indictment was issued, Bahraini and Saudi intelligence had identified him as an important “Iranian interlocutor” with radical Shiite activists who oppose the Khalifa’s rule in Bahrain. The Khalifa monarchy is Sunni-led, but a majority of the island nation’s population is Shiite.

Khalifa mentioned one more name of interest to American observers of the Middle East — the Iraqi Shiite politician Ahmed Chalabi. Lobbying by Chalabi played an important role in mobilizing the Bush administration to invade Iraq in 2003; since then he’s been jockeying for power in Baghdad and, increasingly, tilting toward Iran on regional issues.

Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi tours an Iraqi-owned cargo ship that had been planned to sail full of doctors, nurses and medical supplies to Bahrain but the trip was canceled
The peripatetic Chalabi has now taken up the cause of Bahrain’s Shiite community, pressuring the government in Manama and even, at one point last spring when the political confrontation was intense there, proposing to organize a rescue “flotilla” to deliver aid, on the model of the Turkish flotilla that tried to enter Gaza last year.

“We would regard him as an Iranian agent, no doubt,” said Khalifa. The Iraqi politician couldn’t be reached for immediate contact in Baghdad. But certainly, it’s fair to say that Chalabi has more political lives than a Persian cat.

WP

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26 responses to “Bahrain to U.S.: Stand up to Iran”

  1. Sheikh Khaled is referring to The Hezbollah Party in Iran which are very close to The Hezbollah Party in Lebanon.

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar

      Yes .. and it’s why Nasrallah says it’s ok to have an ‘Arab Spring’ in one country but not in another. Equality isn’t in his equations.
      They need to be putting the names of the meddlers like Shakuri and Chalabi out there more often … an aware public dulls the effects of such types of people, at least. Simply following them around for years doesn’t help when they begin to believe they have enough ‘power’ to create the kind of havoc they wish to visit on otherwise sane citizens.

      1. The funny part, is that most of the problem is in the misreporting the whole situation by western reporters; who want to blow the whole situation ouside the realm of local politics, to an international crisis.

        1. 5thDrawer Avatar

          Yes Ali, there’s more than enough ‘speculators’ in this world. And ‘the west’ allows them the freedom to speculate openly.
          Only a desire for education can help us separate facts by a reporter from opinion by a speculator.
          But, I speculate I would not be happy under a tyrant who allows neither.
          And a ‘Party of God’ by any other name is just as tyrannical.

          1. It is really bad when they use the word “Iran” to describe a political movement such as The Hezbollah Party in Iran, that hates Iran or any nation for that matter.

      2. leobetapar Avatar
        leobetapar

        so for you the shitty khalifa family have right somewhere other than hell?take care to follow them young fellow

    2. leobetapar Avatar
      leobetapar

      it’s not a sheikh it’s an ahl shitty

    3. leobetapar Avatar
      leobetapar

      it’s not a sheikh it’s an ahl shitty

  2. Sheikh Khaled is referring to The Hezbollah Party in Iran which are very close to The Hezbollah Party in Lebanon.

    1.  Avatar

      Yes .. and it’s why Nasrallah says it’s ok to have an ‘Arab Spring’ in one country but not in another. Equality isn’t in his equations.
      They need to be putting the names of the meddlers like Shakuri and Chalabi out there more often … an aware public dulls the effects of such types of people, at least. Simply following them around for years doesn’t help when they begin to believe they have enough ‘power’ to create the kind of havoc they wish to visit on otherwise sane citizens.

      1. The funny part, is that most of the problem is in the misreporting the whole situation by western reporters; who want to blow the whole situation ouside the realm of local politics, to an international crisis.

        1.  Avatar

          Yes Ali, there’s more than enough ‘speculators’ in this world. And ‘the west’ allows them the freedom to speculate openly.
          Only a desire for education can help us separate facts by a reporter from opinion by a speculator.
          But, I speculate I would not be happy under a tyrant who allows neither.

          1. It is really bad when they use the word “Iran” to describe a political movement such as The Hezbollah Party in Iran, that hates Iran or any nation for that matter.

      2.  Avatar

        so for you the shitty khalifa family have right somewhere other than hell?take care to follow them young fellow

    2.  Avatar

      it’s not a sheikh it’s an ahl shitty

  3. leobetapar Avatar
    leobetapar

    the litle shitty is afraid he know that for every shia assassinated by the monstruous beast called khalifa family ten of his own will fall.The animal call for a bigger animal to help but there is no point ,all the hal shitty will be wipe out of the peninsula back to anatolia where the first shit come from on the shoulder of lawrence.
    regards

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar

        Leo didn’t like Lawrence Of Arabia. The movie was too long for him. 😉

        1. leobetapar Avatar
          leobetapar

          all the ahl shitty of the peninsula came from Anatolia .The shaytan Lawrence was looking for sthave the book of oul tayya (an old mauritanian shaytan of the 14 century) he saw a shit who have a bad copy of it in anatolia he give him big weapons and tell him for now you will be the pure mean in turikish ahl saud .Since those time these shits smell bad in our nose son we will free the earth by flashing arabia
          sorry for the bad english only the idea worth

        2. leobetapar Avatar
          leobetapar

          all the ahl shitty of the peninsula came from Anatolia .The shaytan Lawrence was looking for sthave the book of oul tayya (an old mauritanian shaytan of the 14 century) he saw a shit who have a bad copy of it in anatolia he give him big weapons and tell him for now you will be the pure mean in turikish ahl saud .Since those time these shits smell bad in our nose son we will free the earth by flashing arabia
          sorry for the bad english only the idea worth

  4.  Avatar

    the litle shitty is afraid he know that for every shia assassinated by the monstruous beast called khalifa family ten of his own will fall.The animal call for a bigger animal to help but there is no point ,all the hal shitty will be wipe out of the peninsula back to anatolia where the first shit come from on the shoulder of lawrence.
    regards

      1.  Avatar

        Leo didn’t like Lawrence Of Arabia. The movie was too long for him.

        1.  Avatar

          all the ahl shitty of the peninsula came from Anatolia .The shaytan Lawrence was looking for sthave the book of oul tayya (an old mauritanian shaytan of the 14 century) he saw a shit who have a bad copy of it in anatolia he give him big weapons and tell him for now you will be the pure mean in turikish ahl saud .Since those time these shits smell bad in our nose son we will free the earth by flashing arabia
          sorry for the bad english only the idea worth

  5. america stand up when the rest of you  smoke argily  sitting down?

  6. america stand up when the rest of you  smoke argily  sitting down?

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