BBC--If the popular uprising in Egypt gave Washington a real headache, the brutal crackdown on protesters in Bahrain involves even more complicated calculations for the Obama administration.
The US has condemned the use of violence against protesters in Manama but it has chosen its words very carefully so far.
On Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: "Bahrain is a friend and an ally and has been for many years and while all governments have a responsibility to provide citizens with security and stability, we call [for] restraint.’’
President Barack Obama on Friday again spoke of universal rights, including the right to freedom of assembly, but American national interests hang in the balance, perhaps even more so than with Egypt.
Hosni Mubarak had been a US ally for the last 30 years, a moderate president of a country with a peace treaty with Israel and a key partner in the peace process. But with the loud, overwhelming demand from the streets of Cairo for Mr Mubarak’s departure, it became untenable to continue supporting him while professing to support those universal rights, so Washington took a gamble.
It came to the conclusion it could let go of a president who had failed to implement reforms because the Egyptian army, underwritten by the US, would probably maintain the country on a moderate path that would be mostly acceptable to Washington and, by extension, Israel, at least in the short term.
But when the US looks at Bahrain, it sees Iran and the picture blurs. Tehran and Washington have been foes since 1979 and Sunni kingdoms like Bahrain, but also its bigger neighbour Saudi Arabia, a vital US ally, are a crucial counterweight to Iran’s growing influence in the region. Continued…
I
ran arrests pirates in Sea of Oman
Press TV--An Iranian Navy commander says commandoes have captured and detained two suspected Somali pirates near a southeastern port city after the sea bandits hijacked an Iranian fishing boat.
“Navy commandoes at the Chabahar base (a port city on the east coast of the Sea of Oman) began conducting special and reconnaissance missions to arrest pirates after receiving information that an Iranian fishing had been seized,” IRIB quoted the Commander of Chabahar Navy Base as saying on Saturday.
The commander, who was identified as Mareshi, said commandoes managed to disarm and board the ship near Pozm -- a port some 52 km (32 miles) west of Chabahar.
“The pirates controlled the ship for 22 days and in that period attempted to hijack five ships in international waters, but failed in all instances,” he added, but did not elaborate on where the vessel was attacked and hijacked.
Commandoes confiscated a number of firearms from the pirates.
Mrashi said the pirates were turned over to the police forces of Sistan-Baluchestan Province after a court in the nearby town of Konarak sentenced them to jail.
While the pirates continue to prey on commercial ships sailing the dangerous waters of the Gulf of Aden and have expanded their zone of operation further into the Indian Ocean.
