WASHINGTON — If President Barack Obama wanted to place
Washington “on the right side of history” during the ongoing
“Arab Spring,” his reaction to recent events in Bahrain will likely
make that far more difficult, according to a growing number of analysts and
commentators here.

While his administration has become ever more outspoken
against repression in Syria and Yemen — not to mention Libya, where Obama has
called for regime change — it has remained remarkably restrained about the
escalating crackdown by the Sunni monarchy against the majority Shi’a
population and prominent pro-democracy figures.

The strongest criticism in weeks came from Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton Tuesday night at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum here when
she appealed for a “political process that advances the rights and
aspirations of all the citizens of Bahrain” and asserted that
“security alone cannot resolve the challenges” facing the government.

More than two dozen people have been killed by security
forces since the government declared martial law Mar. 15, while more than 400
others have been arrested or are otherwise unaccounted for, according to
international rights groups. Three detainees have died in custody, at least one
apparently from “horrific abuse,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said
Tuesday.

Last weekend, HRW accused the regime of creating a
“climate of fear,” particularly in Shi’a neighborhoods and villages
where night-time raids appear designed mainly to instill terror among the
mostly poor residents.

Professionals, including doctors, lawyers, and human rights
activists, have not been immune from the repression. Media critical of the
government have been effectively muzzled, bloggers arrested, local journalists
hauled into court, and foreign journalists expelled. Even star football players
have been booted off the national team and arrested for taking part in peaceful
protests.

“Things are getting worse, both quantitatively and
qualitatively,” according to Toby Jones, an expert on the Gulf states at
Rutgers University. “It seems that across the board – from allegations of
torture to reports of sweeping arrests – the regime has not just continued its
crackdown, but intensified it.”

“And while it has justified it as restoring law and
order, what it seems to be doing is pursuing a vendetta; that’s the only way to
explain the severity of the situation,” he added.

At the White House, however, silence has prevailed,
suggesting to many observers that Obama is effectively acquiescing in, if not
condoning, what is taking place.

That impression got a big boost when Defense Secretary
Robert Gates visited Saudi Arabia last week in an apparent effort to mend ties
that were badly frayed by Washington’s support for the ouster of Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak in February and by its initial opposition to the
deployment Mar. 14 – that is, on the eve of the martial-law declaration — of
some 1,500 Saudi and Emirati troops to Bahrain with the apparent intention to
strengthen the resolve of King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa to crack down hard
against the pro-democracy movement.

Emerging from a meeting with King Abdullah, Gates claimed
for the first time to have “evidence that the Iranians are trying to
exploit the situation in Bahrain.”

That remark stood in sharp contrast to his dismissal during
his last trip to the Gulf three days before the martial law declaration of
Saudi and Bahraini charges that Tehran was behind the unrest.

Moreover, when asked whether the presence of Saudi troops to
Bahrain had been discussed with the king, Gates replied with a curt
“No.” The Pentagon chief also indicated Washington was not giving any
thought to moving its naval base — home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet — in Bahrain
anywhere else.

Indeed, Washington’s relative silence about the repression
in Bahrain appears to be motivated chiefly by two major geo-strategic
considerations: maintaining its base and other military facilities in the tiny
kingdom; and keeping in the good graces of its giant next-door neighbor, Saudi
Arabia, which clearly sees the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain as part of a
zero-sum struggle against its regional rival, Iran.

“Bahrain is like Cuba for you,” said one member of
a delegation from the Majlis al-Shura, Abdullah’s advisory council, which met
with U.S. officials and think tanks here last week to explain the Saudi
position on regional developments.

“Iran is using the Shi’a as a tool of Persian
policy,” said another. “The most important oil and petrochemical
facilities in Saudi Arabia are within 60 miles of Bahrain. We have no
choice,” he added.

But that perception, and Washington’s apparent acquiescence
in it, risks backfiring on a number of different levels, according to analysts
here who expressed hope that this week’s trip to Saudi Arabia and the UAE by
Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, will convey a very different
message than that delivered by Gates’s comments last week.

As repression intensifies and with no prospect for
meaningful political reform that would give them a share of power, Bahrain’s
Shi’a population, which makes up between 60 and 70 percent of the country’s
citizenry, is being radicalized, according to Jones.

“I don’t think we’re past the point of no return yet
where the radicalization of the Shi’a is permanent, but we’re not far from
there,” he told IPS. “Donilon’s trip might be the moment when the
White House becomes a bit more insistent, but the message needs to be delivered
more urgently than it has been.”

Beyond Bahrain, however, the crackdown and the Saudi and UAE
intervention in support of it could also undermine other U.S. interests in the
Gulf, notably in Iraq where key elements of the ruling coalition government and
even the clerical establishment in Najaf have mobilized in support of Bahrain’s
Shi’a community.

The intervention “gives Iraq, newly dominated by Shi’a
with close ties to Iran, an excuse to make common cause with Iran in supporting
Shi’a insurrection in Bahrain,” retired U.S. Amb. Chas Freeman warned in a
recent talk to the Asia Business Council in Riyadh.

“Outright alliance between Baghdad and Tehran to this
end would have far-reaching adverse implications for Gulf security. The
strategic stakes in Bahrain are higher than many outside the region
appreciate,” he added.

Finally, Washington’s failure to strongly denounce the
repression and its apparent efforts to appease the Saudis undermine its pose as
a champion of human rights and democracy in region, exposing it instead as a
cynical player of realpolitik, according to Chris Toensing, director of the
Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP).

“There is a strong and rising current of disgust in the
region at the Saudi role in the season of Arab revolts where, at every turn,
they have encouraged the harshest repression possible,” he said.
“And, if you look at the timing of Gates’s past two trips (to the region),
people assume that the U.S. is being solicitous of its strategic partner and
acquiescing in Saudi efforts to mount counter-revolutions.”

“There’s a strong suspicion that at least tacit consent was given
to the Bahrainis and Saudis to do their worst in exchange for Arab League
support for the no-fly zone in Libya,” he added. (IPS)