(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Press TV interviewed Mark Glenn of Crescent and Cross Solidarity Movement about the latest developments in Bahrain.
Q: I would like to ask you about the United States' essential silence on Bahrain. The US would obviously want Bahrain to remain stable because it does host the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, yet by any definition Bahrain has been unstable for quite some time now. It's been a significant amount of time now that Saudi troops have entered the country. It's still unstable and things have not gotten back to normal. So why is the United States not waking up and doing something about it?
Glenn: I think that eventually the United States is going to deal with Bahrain in the same way that dealt with Yemen. You remember in the beginning with the weeks and weeks of uprisings in Yemen. The United States was throwing its support behind Saleh, and now we have new reports saying both [President Barack] Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are saying that Saleh needs to go, and we need to bring democracy to the area and all the rest of that.
So I think that they are playing things out and letting these fires that are taking place in the region burn themselves out. Right now of course the United States has its hands full with Libya. But I believe they will eventually stab the Bahraini system in the back.
They will throw their support behind the revolution just as they did in Libya, and this talk of stability, we have to keep in mind the United States and Israel and Israel's other criminal states namely Great Britain and France. They understand that if they are going to maintain that stability, which they have exercised over that part of the world now for decades, there has to be a certain amount of instability that takes place.
I realize that this sounds very confusing, but all of these leaders in the region are old and are dying. We found out this week from reports that [former Egyptian president Hosni] Mubarak had suffered a heart attack. These men literally have one foot in the grave, and interestingly there was a news story that I believe appeared in the New York Times a few weeks ago written by one of these individuals who is very close to the neo-con establishment in Washington D.C.
This individual said that basically there were hidden hands involved in stirring these revolutions beginning in Tunisia and moving on to Egypt and Libya and throughout the entire region including Syria and Iran.
He said something very interesting. He said the demographic makeup of that part of the world is proportionally in favor of young people, and we cannot risk having a young people's revolution really take root. Then we would be dealing with a problem that we would never be able to get our hands on again in the future. So what I'm saying here and this is easy for me to say because I'm not on the streets of Bahrain protesting, and dealing with the brutality the protesters are dealing with. However, at the same time I do believe and I will stand by this prediction that some time in the near future when the United States has decided that it's time for the rule of establishment in Bahrain to go, it will throw its weight behind the protesters.
We will see the same thing happen in Bahrain as we saw in Egypt and in Libya. So we have to keep this in mind. It's this issue of stability. The United States has been planning these things generations in advance. If they have to go through a certain amount of instability, meaning these revolutions taking place in the streets and all the rest of that, and even the fate of these rulers. If the United States has to endure these things in order to ensure she has an absolute uncontested foothold in that part of the world, she will endure. We have to keep this in mind.
Q: Our guest made a point about the US not really promoting democracy in the region but putting pressure on these regimes to put forth cosmetic changes essentially the same being for Bahrain. As you said the US may eventually put some pressure on the Bahraini regime there, maybe even support the protesters in some way. If these cosmetic changes are just brought in considering protesters even in a place like Egypt are still not satisfied with their revolution. What's to say the Bahraini protesters would calm down and accept what the US puts forth?
Glenn: Well ultimately what it boils down to, and I hate to be so brutal in my statement here, ultimately what it boils down to is who's holding the gun. In the case of Egypt, the people are finally starting to realize that a revolution did not take place. Yes a dictator was driven from power, but that was all that took place. The system remains the same as it was the day before the protests broke out in Cairo. So the bottom line here is who's holding the gun.
After some assistance from some big, powerful players such as Russia, China and even Iran, it would obviously be a very risky adventure for Iran to engage in helping the protesters. It would give the US and Israel all of the ammunition that need to ruin Iran's image in front of the world. After some very powerful players getting involved in this and helping the people out whether it is in Egypt, whether it is in Bahrain or whether it is in Yemen nothing is really going to change.
They made protests in the streets, but eventually people have to go back to work. They had to go back to work because they have wives and children they have to feed, and they are not going to be able to put food on the table if they are out in the streets protesting. If a revolution is going to take place, then it has to happen the way a revolution really takes place. People will be in the streets fighting with real guns and real bullets and real bombs. Unfortunately, the players involved in this whether it's Bahrain, Yemen, Egypt or wherever else, they are not going to be able to overthrow these governments, and replace them with truly democratic government unless they have help from some big players such as Russia or China.
Q: You mentioned people have to go back to work and move on essentially but again Bahrain has always prided itself about being business-friendly. There is news now that a lot Bahraini companies and companies based in Bahrain are moving to Dubai for example. Certainly that will have some effect on a ruling family, which is so dependent on businesses to make its own money.
Glenn: I agree but again we have to keep in mind that it takes battle hearted people to go out in the streets and fight wars. That is what it boils down to. And as you pointed out Bahraini people are very friendly, and this is in no way meant to be seen as a derogatory comment about the Bahraini people. But they are just not yet at the stage where they are ready to pick up guns, and to actually shed their own blood or the blood of their enemies to fight for their freedom. It just hasn't gotten to that point yet.
That's not to say it won't. The Egyptian people, I can guarantee if they were suddenly given a supply of weaponry from one of these big powers I discussed such as Russia or China, a good portion of them would no doubt be willing to go up to the next level in fighting a war for their liberation.
At this point it really is a fluid situation. Nobody really saw the United States and these super powers stepping in as they did in the case of Libya. So there is really no way to predict how all of this is going to turn out. Other than the fact we can be rest assured that there is nothing Israel and America are going to allow taking place that is going to frustrate their long term foreign policy objectives.
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