The calls by Iranian officials to topple the regime in Bahrain[1] were recently joined by the IRGC website Basirat. An article published on the website on December 20, 2013, titled "The Revolution In Bahrain Nears Completion," claims that the Aal Khalifa regime is illegitimate and originated outside of Bahrain, and that the Bahraini royal family, which belongs to the country's Sunni minority, is descended from Kuwaiti pirates and is corrupt and prefers Saudi Arabia's interest over that of the Bahrain people. The article also states that the Shi'ite riots in early 2011, which were quashed by the Aal Khalifa regime with Saudi Arabia's assistance, are resuming now.
It should be mentioned that Bahraini authorities accuse Iran of interfering in its internal affairs while Iran denies this.[2]
The following are excerpts from the article, which was also published in the daily Jomhouri-ye Eslami, which is close to Hashemi Rafsanjani, the patron of President Hassan Rohani, on December 26, 2013:[3]
Bahraini King Hamad Aal Khalifa
"In recent days there has been a resurgence of protest marches and rallies by the Bahraini people against the Aal Khalifa regime... In these protests, held under the banner of 'Death to [Bahraini King] Hamad [bin 'Issa Aal Khalifa],' participants demanded to topple the Aal Khalifa regime while crying 'topple the regime', but they... were once again quashed by regime forces... For three years the Aal Khalifa regime has been imprisoning most of the political activists and revolutionary leaders, and has been trying to dissuade the people from continuing on its way by a policy of sowing schism between Shi'ites and Sunnis in Bahrain. Despite this, the marches being held these days show that the Bahraini people still demands to topple the Aal Khalifa regime and that the process of revolution in Bahrain advances towards completion every day, ensuring the collapse of the regime...
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"The following arguments prove this: Historically, the Aal Khalifa regime was never acceptable to most of the Bahraini people, because the Aal Khalifa family belongs to a non-Bahraini tribe. According to Sheikh 'Abdallah Al-Saleh, deputy secretary-general of the [Shi'ite] Al-Amal Al-Islami group, which opposes Aal Khalifa, the Bahraini nation sees them as pirates who came to Bahrain from Kuwait in 1783 and has never accepted their presence in its country. For this reason, Bahrain has witnessed at least one attempt at a revolution against the Aal Khalifa [family] every decade. What all these attempts had in common was the rejection of the Aal Khalifa rule over the country and a hope that the people could forge its own destiny... The rule of the Aal Khalifa family, as Bahraini rulers who are not Bahraini, continues only because it leans on foreign powers like Britain and the U.S. It has always preferred Saudi Arabia's ideas to the demands of its own people...
"During the [Bahraini] uprisings and revolutions of the 20th century, the Aal Khalifa regime used the policy of seduction and fraud several times and managed to deflate popular revolutions by releasing a few political prisoners and negotiating with opposition leaders, promising to meet their demands. According to the deputy secretary-general of the Al-Amal Al-Islami group, the Bahraini people experienced many unsuccessful talks with the Aal Khalifa [family] and they have now reached the conclusion that there is no longer any chance for cooperation with this dynasty...
"With the start of the February 14 [2011] revolution, the Bahraini people faced the regime's powerful and unprecedented oppression. In a move violating international law, Saudi Arabia and the UAE sent their soldiers to this island to oppress the Bahraini people. During the three years of the revolution, the Aal Khalifa family carried out many crimes against the legitimate popular aspirations in this country... Among them... were nightly attacks on homes of revolutionaries, imprisoning most of the revolution leaders, arresting women and young children and torturing them, inhuman beatings and verbal abuse against political prisoners, issuing harsh verdicts against prisoners, attacking holy places, slaughtering people during marches, widespread use of teargas against revolutionaries, and seizing citizens' money and property. If in past years some of the political streams in Bahrain hoped to promote their ambitions by reform, now all political streams in Bahrain agree that the Aal Khalifa [regime] must be toppled. The regime, for its part, has tried to thwart the revolution by every means, but without success. The Aal Khalifa regime is on a downward slope from which there is no return, and the nonlocal rulers of Bahrain should leave that island."
Endnotes:
[1] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No. 972Iran Calls On Shi'ites In Bahrain To Topple Their Country's Sunni Aal Khalifa Regime, May 29, 2013; and MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No. 702, Iran's Defeat in the Bahrain Crisis: A Seminal Event in the Sunni-Shi'ite Conflict, July 4, 2011.
[2] For example, the Bahraini authorities reported recently that an attempt to smuggle Iranian arms into the country by sea had been thwarted (Arabnews.com, December 31, 2013), and also accused Iran of training Bahraini oppositionists in its territory, which Tehran denied (bna.bh, December 30, 2013; IRNA, Iran, December 31, 2013).
[3] Basirat (Iran), December 20, 2013; Jomhouri-e Eslami (Iran), December 26, 2013.
