All of the observers were reminded of the saying of King Abdallah from last January quoted above, and understood that Saudi Arabia and Bahrain indeed have passed from a stage of cooperation to the stage of becoming one entity in a way that will be acceptable for all sides. They are reminded that in the first Council of the Summit, a decision was taken to establish a think tank that would include three representatives from every state and would deal with the way in which the Gulf states can create some kind of union among them. The schedule was fairly tight: In February, names of participants were supposed to have been submitted, and in March – just one month afterward – the team was supposed to have served its recommendations.
When they heard about the idea of a union between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, the Iranians were beside themselves with rage. The semi-official Fars News Agency called the idea “an evil Saudi-Gulf step intended to give legitimacy to the occupation of Bahrain”, and the Iranian spokesman said in an interview on BBC that “if Bahrain unties with any other state, it must unite again with Iran, not with Saudi Arabia”.
It could be that the declaration of ‘Ishqi was intended to be a “trial balloon” to see what the reaction would be, and they would decide what action to take afterward, but it could also be that it was intended to prepare public opinion in the Gulf states for the time when they must accept the hegemony of the Saudi “big brother” so that it can rescue them from the “neighboring giant” of Iran. In many Gulf states there are significant Shi’ite minorities, some of which speak Persian, and the leaders of these states are well acquainted with the Iranian attempts to arouse these minorities to rebellion against the Sunni regimes such as that in Bahrain.
They watch with great concern how the balance of power is changing to their detriment globally, while China and Russia paralyze the West and enable Iran to race forward with its nuclear military plans. Their fear is increased when the head of the International Atomic Energy Association returns this week with an “agreement” that might be no more meaningful than the 2012 version of the “Munich Agreement”, which Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great Britain, brought in 1938, declaring “peace in our time” which ended a year after that in the bloodshed that enveloped Europe as well as the rest of the world.
The leaders of the Gulf do not believe even one word that comes out of the Iranians’ mouths, and they fear that the West may again fall into the trap of deception that Sa’eed Jalili laid in Baghdad. Western naiveté – in their opinion – will ultimately cause the states of the Gulf to fall at the feet of the Iranians and therefore they are trying now to find a way to create a union with Saudi Arabia. Bahrain is the weak link in the chain formed by the states of the Gulf, and therefore the union will begin with it. And the more that time passes and the further the West falls into the Iranian trap, the more the states of the Gulf will be pushed by their fear into the warm bosom of the Saudi family.
