Latest / The Nation Podcasts / The Crackdown in Bahrain w/ Aamer | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

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The Crackdown in Bahrain w/ Aamer | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer · The Nation Podcasts

• 0:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: The old world is dying.
• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: The new world struggles through born.
• 0:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now is the time of monsters.
• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: With those words from Gramshee, I welcome you to the time of monsters podcast.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm G.T.
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: here of the nation magazine, which is a sponsor of this podcast.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've often taken up the Iran War in the podcast, and this week I want to return to it.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: But with a specific focus on how it's affecting people in the region,
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: and the sort of social tensions and political tensions, it's opening up within the Gulf States.
• 0:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there's a very good article that appeared in a new publication called the North South Notes, which I'll link to, which focuses particularly on the nation of Bahrain.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the writer, for reasons I think will come out in the course interview, only goes by his first name, his name is Amir, and he's a writer who focuses on the Gulf.
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for having me deep.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, I appreciate this.
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so now your article is focusing on sort of a political tensions that I've opened up in Bahrain, how long is our political and sectarian lines?
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think some listeners at least might be familiar with some videos that were very, got very wide circulation on social media, showing Iranian attacks on Bahrain and then people in the crowds cheering
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that raises all sorts of questions in terms of where the loyalties of the population lie and some of the sort of tensions between regimes and their population.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: So do you want to like maybe give us a context of how this war is rippling through society and some of the tensions that are opening up?
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so first things first, many of those people who took those videos have been identified, arrested, and are being tried for things like treason.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Many of them have been sentenced to five to ten year prison terms.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some have been sentenced to life in prison, and a number of people, 69 people last night checked have been denaturalized, stripped of their citizenship and deported by the government of Bahrain, because they are being accused of being traitors to the
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is because for a long time the government of Bahrain, which is a monarchy, views a significant segment of its population as fifth columns and possible traders because the monarchy is Sunni, and there's a significant majority in Bahrain that is Shia.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now the exact proportions are
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: of a combination of things that happen to the modern senses, deliberate naturalization program of Sunnis from the region, but for a long time the majority Shia population was something along the lines of 70-30.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today it's probably less because of the naturalization,
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: But to go back to your point about the videos and the cheering, the historically assuming monarchy treats its shape population with disdain at the best of times.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so when the strikes happened, the attacks on the American bases were seen in as if anything attacks on symbols of the behinding government and its American protectors, it's benefactors.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so there was a sense of
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: at the very least relief because for once at least the government was feeling repercussions of its behavior.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I mean, like, everything you're indicating, you know, suggest a society that is going through a great deal of sort of internal strife, maybe just a sort of flesh it out, like, in terms of what the sort of societies like.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: So as you said, it's a monarchy, and I think that there has been sort of pressures put to democratize and to move away from an absolute monarchy to more of a constitutional monarchy, but these pressures have been resisted, right?
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it is very much a sort of
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the model of an absolute monarchy.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is that a fair description of the government?
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I would say so.
• 4:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, when Bahrain first got independence from the British in 1971, there was a small experiment with democracy.
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was a national assembly and elections.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was universal mail suffrage and parties both Islamist and left wing were elected into parliament with a constitution that delegated significant political power.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, in 1973, the Bahrain government proposed this law the state security law, but the behest of the then head of the National Security Agency, Colonel Ian Henderson, a British officer.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then security law was vetoed by parliament because it gave broad powers to the government to detain people and without charge for a long period of time, etc.
• 4:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: etc.
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in response to the parliament vetoing that law, the then in mere of Bahrain before it became
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: basically shut down parliament and began ruling by decree and there were periods of unrest throughout the 70s and 80s and 90s and the 90s when the old Emir died, his son, the print that then prints, took over and proposed this national referendum that proposed all these like, you know, packages of reform.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was what exactly what you said.
• 5:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was the proposal was to bring back some semblance of a
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: to make it a monarchy because at that point it was a sort of a state with an amir as a leader and now it would be a perenary monarchy with a constitutional amendments that give parliament some power and the referendum passed in 2001.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, the referendum was then watered down significantly by the king.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so there was some, you know, back and forth tension in the mid-Autts, that culminated in 2011, obviously, with the Arab Spring.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Arab Spring is a loaded term because each country has sort of its own internal dynamics as to why these events happened.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: But no doubt there was some, you know, encouragement and influence from seeing the events happen in Tunisia and Egypt.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Interestingly enough, the date of the archery in Bahrain, February 14, 2011, was chosen at the 10-year anniversary of the passing of the referendum to mark its failures, and the demands in 2011 were rather modest, they were basically what you said, a return to a constitutional monarch, much like many in Europe, where the king would have
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: some power, but that parliament would take over the majority of state function.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, there was a period of crackdown and then a period of negotiation that was stalled, and facing this, the king's uncle, who was a prime minister, called in the Saudi troops, under the guise of the Gulf Cooperation Council's peninsula shield unit.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: and with majority staffed by Saudis, with some Emirates, the Kuwaitis and Qataris chose not to participate.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Kuwaitis, I believe, sent a few logistical help.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Qataris and the Amanis didn't send anything at all.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: These troops came across the border, the one land connection between Bahrain, which is an island and the peninsula that King Fahed caused way.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: and they crack down hard.
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And since then, the absolute and absolute monarchy was very much emphasized.
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was no longer any space for reform or for a constitutional monarchy.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: The opposition were shattered.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: All political parties were banned.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Many leaders went to exile or were imprisoned.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: hundreds were killed, and since then the government has ruled strictly by force, and it's a combination of violence and repression on the one hand.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: But on the other hand, also, demanding this ambiguous fealty from its citizens that you see now in this current war that's revealed this tension.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the government is basically forcing people to sign pledges of allegiance publicly, where they would post the list on state media of every single family that signed the allegiance, that is these pledges of allegiance.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, sort of leaving it to people to figure out whose names are not there and sort of dot, dot, dot, why are your names not there?
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that's sort of a political repression.
• 8:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, like undergrids a lot of that.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think as your article emphasizes, it's connected with those sort of larger politics of the region and its relationship with the United States, which is sort of taken over the role that the British Empire used to have, of being the sort of guarantees of state power.
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, just to sort of like, again, flesh out, so an island has like roughly 1.6 million people, like a lot of the Gulf countries is a substantial number of certain guest workers, right?
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like of that.
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, there's a lot of migrant workers from South Asia, South East Asia and East Africa.
• 8:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: What makes Bahrain distinct from the rest of the Gulf is the ease in which citizenship can be attained
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: other Arabs, Sunni Arabs, and to a certain extent Pakistanis as well, because Bahrain has attempted the sort of strange demographic project, the deliberate attempt to manipulate demographics on a sectarian and explicitly sectarian lines, so
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unlike the rest of the Gulf where, you know, you could live there for 30, 40 years work there and there's no chance you'll ever get a citizenship because all the other Gulf countries sort of guard their citizenship privileges very, very fiercely.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: We Bahrain for certain very explicitly sectarian reasons.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: the ability to attain citizenship means that there's you have a class of workers, migrant workers, who staff service industry construction, things of that nature.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: But then you have another class of individuals who are migrants from Syria, from Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Palestine,
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: and there's Sunni always, and they staff the security apparatus of Bahrain, the military and the police, which are organs that are denied, the local Chiap population, they're not allowed to work in these sort of quote-unquote sensitive ministries.
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so that I would say that we make Bahrain unique compared to the rest of the Gulf, where expats and migrants do exist and mass, but they're not
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no, I mean, that seemed very distinctive.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I get it also reinforces the degree to which the sort of Sunni Shia conflict is like under grid sort of state policies.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: What there's a specific policy is trying to make this society more Sunni, right?
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now in terms of the sort of geopolitics of this, my general sense is that like the sort of crushing of the Arab Spring was a crucial precondition for the Abraham Accords and for the attempt by the United States to like engineer kind of reconciliation between the Gulf
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: based on the line, an alliance that is anti-Aran in basis.
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, is that a fair reading of the situation of the Gulf as a whole?
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: To an extent, I mean, on the one hand, you're right, I think.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Abraham Accords was supposed to be an appetizer for the main course, which was the normalization between Saudi and Israel.
• 11:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Saudi was always the biggest prize for both American and Israel.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: If Saudi normalizes, that was the dream, the sort of white whale for a lot of American administrations and Netanyahu as well.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So in that case, the Abraham Accords was a trying to pave the way for that.
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in many cases, October 7th, I mean, Yaha Sinwara of Hamas has mentioned the Abraham Accords as an explicit reason for October 7th to halt the spread of normalization.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what's interesting about the sort of anti-iron access is that leading up to the Abraham records and then afterwards, there were tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
• 12:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: These were driven by multiple reasons.
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: First of all, there was OPEC.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: The UAE didn't like Saudis control over OPEC and in particular Saudis interest in keeping quotas low because Saudi needed oil to be above a certain price for its own budgetarian fiscal policies, whereas the UAE was much more flexible and was interested in pretty much dumping its oil on a market regardless of the price.
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: The other reasons involved foreign policy.
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: of the conflict, or at least not exactly on the same side of the conflict, for example, in Yemen, in Sudan, Libya, and elsewhere, and to an extent, Muhammad bin Falman of Saudi Arabia sort of blamed the UAE for the quagmaiar that Yemen turned into.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: He sort of, from what we understand, feels that he was dragged into the war by the Emirati's.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now,
• 13:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: The reason I mention this is because in the context of the Abraham Accords, the Saudis sort of cool their interest of after October 7th and especially after China, let us sort of date on between Saudi and Iran in 2004 to 2024.
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, while the UAE sort of doubled down on the Abraham Accords, Saudi sort of withdrew and became far more neutral in that context, which created this sort of subliminal rift in the Gulf that the governments of the Gulf explicitly denied because they tried to present a unified front, but it's sort of bubbling under the surface.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you see it from time to time, come up with certain political decisions like the UAE's decision to exit OPEC for example.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and the UAE, like, to be clear, like, is most strongly aligned with the sort of U.S. Israel policy of, like, a sort of, like, war against Iran.
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, I mean, I'd like your thoughts on, like, why it's sort of taking that position, but it seems like it's also, like, a regime that feels very threatened by any sort of, like, sort of democratic change or a popular participation in politics.
• 14:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: and it's really kind of like doubling down on sort of like a hypocrisy and this kind of a period of alliance.
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is that right?
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I would say so.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's this combination of foreign and domestic policy where dissent is not tolerated domestically whatsoever and the censorship within the UAE is absolutely brutal.
• 14:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's doubled with funding the R.I.S.F.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: in Sudan, back in Khalifa, Haftar in Libya, and the sort of foreign policy ventures where the UAE has the strategy of picking a certain faction in a civil war, fomenting civil war even, and then picking a faction that can drive its economic and military interest in the region.
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It sees itself as a sort of
• 15:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: middle power that's trying to assert its regional rugged and and to your point about it it's it's alliance with the sort of american is really imperial access it is the most hawkish on Iran the UAE surprisingly because for a long time it was Saudi that was the most hawkish on Iran but the the data on between Saudi and Iran from 2024 onwards and the build up to that
• 15:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: was reflected in the UAE becoming more and more hawkish to the point that they've been pressing the Trump administration.
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: They and the Israelis have both the Trump administration to resume the war.
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: They really, really, really don't like the ceasefire and they really don't like the possibility of an actual deal being made.
• 15:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even though the UAE was the most hit by far of all the Gulf countries during the war.
• 16:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so we have like UAE as the most hawkish wing and then as you're indicating within the sort of like American imperial system they see their real features that have opened up with the Saudi Arabia as the one that was sort of cited as you know we're going to have doubts.
• 16:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is also fair to say like Qatar and Oman also like aren't on board with the war
• 16:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I mean Qatar.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Aman Aman always was separate from the rest of it.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's maneuvered.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's all sort of semi-neutral foreign policy.
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Qatar, I think, has realized how badly the war's going and how
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: In effective American protection has been the deal of buying all these American equipments American military in exchange for protection has backfired spectacularly.
• 16:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's reports that Qatar is looking at a minus a 6% contraction in its economy this year.
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's the one that's suffering the most economically right now.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so both Qatar and Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent Kuwait are more
• 17:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: driven towards getting a deal where the UAE and Bahrain are the most hawkish because they see Iran as a sort of on the one hand, it's sort of ideological threat and existential threat and their their attitude is Iran has to be destroyed at all costs and we're you know we can't tolerate the Islamic Republic as it currently exists whereas
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we're willing and we're willing for the war to continue until the Iran as a state is broken.
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whereas the Saudis, the Qataris and the Kuwaitis are willing to accommodate Iran and make a deal.
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's created this fissure in the Gulf that no one is acknowledging openly, but under the surface you can see it in the negotiations happening.
• 18:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 18:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a kind of like a spectrum, you know, among elite actors, but then there's also tensions between elites and the general population.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think this like your article makes sort of clear, this tension is not just about the current war, but like larger shoes of the sort of nature society and also these are your Palestine question.
• 18:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because the sort of we all alter our hawker's position of Bahrain and UAE involves an alliance with Israel and involves like accepting whatever rhetorical objections they might have in practice it involves accepting what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank and in Lebanon.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, so where does like the sort of public sort of stand on this, both the broader public and then if there are any sort of like sectarian divisions along that?
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it varies from country to country.
• 18:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't seem that the UAE is particularly against normalization, at least.
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's public has a very small citizen population, which is easily managed, whereas,
• 19:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: The sort of Abraham Accords and normalization are hugely unpopular in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.
• 19:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Saudi is more varied as well.
• 19:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's also the age gap older people tend to be much more anti-Zionous and anti-Israel than younger people, because there's a much deeper memory of the first anti-Falda the second anti-Falda.
• 19:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So forth, that being said, I mean, I will say in Bahrain at least normalization is very, very, very, very unpopular.
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, the ability to influence the government is non-existent, especially after 2011 and the crushing of all the opposition parties.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there's demonstrations, there's riots within Shia villages from time to time, people get arrested, people get detained.
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: But at the end of the day, the government is more than willing to repress its own people in Bahrain than to see it on the issue of normalization.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: they arrested people for criticizing, vaguely criticizing the Arab world's attitude towards Israel during the genocide in Gaza.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: They arrested opposition leaders for vaguely intimidating with the Arab world, wasn't doing enough and accused them with charges as absurd as insulting the brotherly Arab countries, which is a rather like insane charge to have
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that gets you six months in jail.
• 20:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, it's a very tense situation.
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's exacerbated by this war also in terms of finances, right?
• 20:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So for example, since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: In Bahrain, a lot of the grocery, a lot of the import of food comes from the Kingfad causeway.
• 20:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's been coming through Saudi Arabia by truck.
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that means that instead of ships that's coming by truck, and that is increased of prices of a lot of goods in particular produce and meats.
• 21:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And right now, the government has been pretty much like tamping down on an exorbitant price increases by sending out price inspectors to monitor changes in price and limit the amount that shops can increase their price.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: They've also removed certain value out of taxes on utilities.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the government has declared that it will
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: supplement the salaries of private sector workers should their salaries, you know, get cut.
• 21:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just to make sure that everyone sort of, everyone, the tensions can be managed, but it's sort of simmering.
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's, there's a lot of issues that can't go on forever.
• 21:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Especially the state of Hormuz continues being closed.
• 21:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's just like the nation is obviously like under a lot of stress, but as you will, you'll also indicate it and your article explains it's sort of a greater detail, which I'll link to.
• 22:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the repressive nature of the regime means that it can ignore public opinions or like long periods of time.
• 22:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like this question is like one has to have is like on the one hand the situation seems unsustainable but like then like but how long does that unsustainable it will be lost?
• 22:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's the question, right, and it's hard to say because, you know, in my opinion, Bahrain is stuck between us rocking this hard place, where as a smaller country, next to Saudi Arabia, there's a cap on how much change can happen domestically without broader change in the region, right?
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because much like 2011, I genuinely believe that
• 22:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: any real threat to the government's power to the monarch's position would precipitate a military response from Saudi Arabia, even if the Bahrain has moved away from Saudi Arabia's orbits recently towards the Emirati orbit and the sort of simmering tension in the region.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: At the end of the day, the Saudis will send troops in order to maintain their influence on
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you're you're hitting a hard wall on how you can possibly affect change.
• 23:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now interestingly, the history of Bahrain shows that
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: the repression, the level, and the degree of the repression changes depending on the benefit that Bahrain's benefactors.
• 23:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So as, as much as the British supported and upheld the Khalifa's, the rapidians were the British also curtailed the worst excesses of Khalifa abuse, specifically because they were more interested in stability.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: and they saw the tensions as a threat to their position in the region.
• 23:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they would limit the worst of the Khalifa excesses.
• 23:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, in the current climate with no polity in the region willing to curtail the Bahrainic government, there would be no avenue for change, short of broader regional change affecting countries outside of Bahrain, which sounds very cynical, but unfortunately for me, that is the case right now.
• 24:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I mean, does seem like quite grim.
• 24:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Except, I mean, I guess the large issue, what is also left with is like a lot of this, sort of, I mean, I think the tensions that you describe are very acute in Bahrain for the death of demographic reasons that you indicated.
• 24:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: But how sustainable are the other governments in the region?
• 24:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: and it seems to me a lot of the actions of the UAE sort of indicate a regime that seems very brittle, seems very scared, and his concern of engaged in a lot of reckless actions because it's sort of feels threatened all the time.
• 24:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Does that make sense or is that like to either optimistic or pessimistic a thing?
• 24:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, I mean, it's your right to, to a large extent you're right in that the war has affected the UAE more than most.
• 25:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the UAE is promise more than just Abu Dhabi's oil was that if you're any type of wealthy person, you can sort of move to Abu Dhabi or Dubai and your assets would be safe, you would be safe, you would be able to live a life where you don't have to think
• 25:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know many, many, many expats who have left the country.
• 25:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dubai is pretty much empty at this point.
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, what you're referring to is what I think the financial times.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a very positive assessment called the dream of Dubai.
• 25:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is like, this is the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I saw that piece and it's very interesting because, you know, that dream was based on very, very brittle assumptions.
• 25:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was based on certain perceptions, which is why the UAE is also so hawkish is because it feels as it can only regain that safety, that sort of, or the image or the mirage of safety, if Iran is completely shattered, the effects that the attacks have had on the UAE,
• 26:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: have hardened the leadership, the government's hearts more than anything else, and it's interesting because the UAE's fiscal model, aside from the oil, was to present itself as this utopia.
• 26:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, aside from the, the, the, a lot of these expats leaving, there was also a news that the FT also broke of the assets of people of Iranian origin being frozen by the Emirates now if you're if you're something like the UAE right or like historically some places like Singapore Hong Kong the whole point of your economy was that whatever wherever you come from your money is safe here.
• 26:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if geopolitical tensions lead to your assets being frozen, you're no longer appealing to people who are very wealthy or are coming from unstable political backgrounds, which is sort of what the economic model of Dubai underneath, all of everything else is.
• 27:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's just driving people away more than anything else.
• 27:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's not even talking about the tourism, all the different factors of trips to Dubai being canceled.
• 27:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: The airports are still nowhere near full capacity.
• 27:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're the operating on 25, 30% capacity on the airports.
• 27:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're a huge driver of economic activity too.
• 27:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the other things also, the ex-pads, are the little bit of the workers, like the migrant workers, the laborers,
• 27:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: has as the economy sort of teachers.
• 27:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of these workers will think about going home because they're probably not going to get paid sooner or later.
• 27:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's going to drive a large aspect of the UAE's economy, which is, you know, if you're middle class in Europe and you move to the UAE, you can afford servants, domestic servants from east to southeast Asia and then south.
• 28:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: South Asia and East Africa and what happens with all these people leave because the war has has scared everyone off.
• 28:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, that's the very fragile economic model that you've built there.
• 28:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, it's a very fragile model and you know, like I would also indicate.
• 28:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: If their solution is renewed war, and if the UAE and Bahrain want, you know, like really push for renewed fighting against Iran, that threatens them as much as the Iranians, especially since I think there's very good reasons to believe that Iran has not actually used all the weapons that are its disposal.
• 28:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: The irony is that they want their pushing for more war, but the way they're managing it, they're managing it with a strictly public relations problem.
• 29:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: So while they're hawkish and pushing the US to get involved again, the domestic response has been to forbid anyone to talk about it as a war to
• 29:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: banned the sharing of images or videos of any strikes whatsoever, punishable by fines and jail, and to drive state media, the state press, to go on these absurd public relations campaigns where they'll send journalists to malls and say, look, everything is great here.
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: People are eating in these food courts and these restaurants.
• 29:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no war here.
• 29:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Anyone who's telling you there's
• 29:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: While they were there, they were not sharing any information, and as soon as they left, they were talking about how you would be waking up three, four times a night because of drones or alarms about drones, how a lot of the restaurants are empty, not a lot of people are going out, and a lot of people have left.
• 30:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, it's sort of like censorship.
• 30:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, itself tells its own story that sort of arrests that you document the crackdown on sort of public opinion.
• 30:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: So again, it seems like the government
• 30:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: at the very least is carrying through a policy that seems like incoherent in the sense that they're pushing for like more war even though like the war has gone so badly that they can't even have like an honest discussion of what the costs are.
• 30:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I mean like it seems like there's a really fundamental contradiction here which you know like as we know from history like war can really cares as I already is apart.
• 30:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I mean what's your sense of like how bad things could get?
• 30:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: very, very, very bad.
• 30:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, a lot of these countries are also not exactly food sufficient, right?
• 30:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not a, they're not growing their own food.
• 30:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of them rely on desolination plants for, for, for water.
• 30:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, and Iran, to a large extent, has held off on attacking a lot of the more vital infrastructure in these countries.
• 31:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: In particular, the desolination plants that
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: electric facilities.
• 31:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean I'm not saying they didn't strike them, they did strike them, but they could hit them a lot harder with a lot more resources, and this would be very, very, very bad.
• 31:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Iran has threatened that if it's, if it's bridges are to be attacked, it would hit the Kingfad cause we're linking Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and that would be disastrous for Bahrain because right now that's where all the food is coming from.
• 31:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if we shift from
• 31:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: ship to, to truck to planes, a place that might not even land because the airport might get attacked too.
• 31:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then, you know, where is our, where are vegetables coming from?
• 31:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where is our meat coming from?
• 31:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where's our, you know, we'd be, we'd be short very quickly on food.
• 31:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yet, because of its sectarian ideological sectarianism, the Bahrainian government remains hawkish.
• 32:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's,
• 32:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's hard for me to determine what's driving this beyond their sectarianism because like you point out, you rightly point out, it is suicidal and yet here we are.
• 32:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It seems to me that these governments don't understand that
• 32:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: most if not all wars have to come to a negotiated settlement and they're genuinely believe in a total victory that as far as I can tell Iran has shown that it is as of now impossible to achieve a total surrender of the country and that's all happening and in the third and next time Saudi Arabia Qatar and Kuwait has understood that which is why they're much more
• 32:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: open to negotiations and a deal versus the hawkishness of Bahrain in the UAE.
• 32:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, the quality, it is a kind of suicidal policy.
• 32:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like assuming that like, you know, there's not a renewed war, and there is a kind of sub sort of a modest Vende deal that's worked out, where will that sort of like,
• 33:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: like, will they continue to be pushing for war?
• 33:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't seem like they can live with the only logical solution to the current conflict, which isn't the question it's elements.
• 33:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, any thoughts on how they would even be able to handle that?
• 33:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's hard to say, it really is.
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's also the elephant in the room, which is how utterly unpredictable the US is, right?
• 33:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, a lot of this, it goes back to how, basically the current in the US administration follows whoever was last in the room with Trump telling him what's going on.
• 33:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there's really, it's very hard to, to gauge this on a time frame longer than the last day or even the last hour.
• 33:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: But on the other hand, I mean, every one of these governments is also composed of internal palace factions and some are more amenable to some sort of settled negotiation than others.
• 34:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right now, in Bahrain, the sort of while the power lies in a more hawkish group,
• 34:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: It wouldn't be entirely, say people with a UAE.
• 34:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the UAE is different because also the UAE, the combination of Emirates, right?
• 34:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Dubai has been far more annoyed with this hawkishness than Abu Dhabi, which is the most powerful of the Emirates, and therefore drive it for policy because I have the control of the state levers, but
• 34:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: These things are often very opaque and much easier to look back on than to try and predict, but they are very fluid and it's very easy for different people to take different parts of the state.
• 34:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: In a way that Frank explained this lightly, in a way that
• 34:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: from the outside looking in, it might not look like much has changed.
• 35:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's the same royal families, but the particular individuals and the particular groups and powering them would be different enough to a certain degree that certain policies can be adjusted.
• 35:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it also depends on, you know,
• 35:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Saudi Arabia is a far bigger power than the rest of the Gulf combined, so it would really depend on how the Saudis react to everything I would argue.
• 35:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the UAE can, you know, hem and haul and throw it towards out of the Pram.
• 35:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if the Americans and the Saudis both decide that a settled negotiation is better and a deal is better, then the UAE will have to go along because
• 35:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: at the end of the day what this war has also shown is that they have their much more dependent on the Americans and they realize and they don't really have as much I mean they have influence but if the US tomorrow was to say we're gonna make a deal and that was the decision that you asked wanted to follow then the UAE has to follow that because they
• 36:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense.
• 36:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Although, I mean, I would also suggest based on your earlier analysis that all the kind of tensions within these societies are also not going to go away.
• 36:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: If they don't find the expression in the current conflict, they'll eventually find expression at some point in the future.
• 36:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: But as I'm not know though, I would highly recommend listeners to read the article you co-wrote, which I'll link to.
• 36:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I want to thank Amir for a very enlightening discussion.
• 36:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
• 36:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
• 36:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: They really appreciate this.
• 36:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.