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Monday, April 20, 2026
[Salon] Bahrain divided by the Iran war - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Bahrain divided by the Iran war
Summary: the death of a Bahraini activist in detention and mass arrests amid a government crackdown exposes political divides and a climate of fear in the small Gulf island kingdom.
We thank Andrew McIntosh for today’s newsletter. Andrew is the Director of Research at the NGO SALAM for Democracy and Human Rights. His specialty fields are media analysis, sectarianism and statelessness in Bahrain, Kuwait and Syria.
The Iran war has reopened political and sectarian wounds in Bahrain. Seven weeks of conflict have not only damaged Bahrain’s economy but have also torn the island nation’s already frayed social fabric. Iranian drone strikes have set people on edge at the same time that protests have erupted in support of Iran leading to accusations of espionage resulting in severe restrictions on freedoms and civil space.
Bahrain has been securitised to a level not seen since the aftermath of mass protests during the Arab Spring. The result is a society more divided than it has been since those protests were violently suppressed in 2011, leaving many Bahrainis angry and fearful. In a country where the US is unpopular there is growing opposition to the presence of American bases including the US Fifth Fleet headquartered in the capital Manama. Others fear the potential existence of pro-Iranian cells. These fears and tensions have been exacerbated by the recent death of a Shi’a activist in custody, accused by the authorities of collaborating with Iran.
On 16 March, Sayed Mohammed al-Mousawi was arrested by Bahraini security forces with five others while stopped at a checkpoint near the city of Muharraq. Al-Mousawi, a Bahraini Shi’a Muslim photographer who had been vocal about his opposition to the war and his support for the Axis of Resistance was reportedly taken into custody over pro-Iranian content found on his phone. He disappeared for five days, with his family unable to reach him. On 21 March, the family was instructed by authorities to come to a military hospital, where they were led to the morgue to identify their son’s body. The body, deeply bruised, lacerated and bloodied, bore clear signs of severe torture.
Large crowds gathered for the funeral of Sayed Mohammed Al-Mousawi, the 32-year-old tortured to death by Bahraini security forces following his arrest in a crackdown on those opposed to the US-Israeli war on Iran.
For members of Bahrain’s banned opposition movements, al-Mousawi’s death is a harsh reminder of the brutality dissenters have faced at the hands of the Bahraini state. The ruling Sunni Muslim Al-Khalifa crushed the 2011 uprising declaring martial law, killing protesters in the streets and in detention and using torture systematically. In the country’s politicised courts opposition leaders were sentenced to long prison terms and in some cases to life. Having silenced any dissent the Bahraini government made considerable efforts to reassure the international community it was engaged in meaningful efforts to improve human rights and institute democratic reforms. Al-Mousawi’s killing undoes all of that, confirming the worst fears of Bahraini dissidents and human rights advocates. His funeral was attended by civilians and prominent Bahraini activists, who transformed the event into a peaceful protest that authorities attempted to contain.
On 16 April the authorities announced they were charging an officer with the National Security Agency with assault leading to death of an individual in custody. The victim was not named though it is clear that it was al-Mousawi.
Regardless of the outcome of the case against the officer, within the Shi’a community there is little belief that in Bahrain’s highly politicised courts justice will prevail. Al-Mousawi has become a symbol of martyrdom under state oppression: a young Shi’a who was persecuted and ultimately killed for his beliefs.
However for government loyalists, he was seen as a dangerous pro-Iranian agent who had been previously imprisoned for 12 years on terrorism charges. They accept the government narrative that he had colluded with Iran in a war where military and civilian infrastructure has been attacked by the Iranians, killing two and injuring over fifty.
The Bahraini government has amplified such narratives, building on longstanding fears from pro-government Bahrainis that Iran seeks to undermine or annex the country. Although the Ministry of Interior has promised an investigation into al-Mousawi’s death, it also highlighted the accusation against him of collaborating with the IRGC and claimed that pictures of his body were “inaccurate”. These official interventions from the state, including state media sharing the names and faces of individuals accused of espionage before they are officially charged and tried, reveal deep institutional bias where authorities are quick to name and intimidate anyone they suspect of undermining the authority of the Al-Khalifa.
Allegations include taking pictures of drone impacts, criticising Bahrain’s alliance with the US and Israel and showing support for Palestine. Bahraini human rights activists claim that attempts to depict Al-Mousawi and others arrested as part of a treasonous clique ignore systemic inequalities in Bahraini law, drawing attention to the fact that the country’s definition of terrorism is incredibly broad and has been historically used to prosecute peaceful dissenters. One former Bahraini politician who did not want to be named explains, “The charge of terrorism can be brought against anyone who publicly opposes the government. Whether it’s criticising the [Bahraini] government online, throwing a firebomb or colluding with a foreign entity, the charge is the same.” Moreover, the manner of Al-Mousawi’s death has revived memories of similar killings in custody further damaging trust among many Shi’a.
Since the war began, over 230 individuals have been arrested in Bahrain. Many face serious charges for engaging in marches or filming drone impacts. The charges include espionage for which they could face “death for treason” as Bahrain's state-controlled media puts it. Some have remarked that the torture and death of al-Mousawi was intended as an implicit threat, meant to silence other would-be protesters in the country. With the five other individuals arrested alongside him still missing, the threat feels very real. It has already had chilling effects. Al-Mousawi’s father complained that the Ministry of Interior told him to cease making public remarks about his son's death. Other Bahrainis have recently fled the country: “I have left Bahrain for now. I’ve been very active online, and the government is calling me and telling me to stop. I don’t know when I’ll be going back.”
Activists abroad have found themselves subjected to renewed harassment campaigns online, while those on the ground fear that the Bahraini government could embark on a new campaign of mass citizenship stripping when hostilities end. Following the uprising in 2011, at least 985 Bahrainis were stripped of their nationalities, with many rendered stateless as a consequence.
Facing discrimination at home, some Bahrainis believe Iran acts as a counterweight to the Al-Khalifa, enabling Shi’a to hang on to what limited rights they have while attempting to push for more. Despite Iran having an incredibly poor human rights record, Iranian and pro-Iranian media regularly cover human rights abuses and sectarian discrimination in Bahrain, a topic mostly ignored in Western media. One Shi’a Bahraini , requesting anonymity, claimed “If Iran loses the war, the [Bahraini] government can do whatever it wants to us.” However, that same belief exposes them to further accusations of treason from pro-government commentators.
With the outcome of the ceasefire between Iran and the US remaining uncertain, Bahrain is likely to suffer persistent instability further damaging its economy as well as denting the international image of security and prosperity the regime has meticulously worked to construct. For the Shi’a community and for many Sunnis, it is a bleak reminder that an inability for society to heal from 2011 has left Bahrainis once again divided and anxious, not only fearful for their freedom and security but also dreading that the country can never truly move forward.
[Salon] Markets prematurely may celebrate, but the next phase likely will be more, bigger war - Guest Post
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/04/20/markets-prematurely-may-celebrate-but-the-next-phase-likely-will-be-more-bigger-war/
Alastair Crooke, 4/20/26
Markets prematurely may celebrate, but the next phase likely will be more, bigger war
Trump’s tariff war will be seen in retrospect to be peanuts to the threatened strike on China’s supply lines.
We are entering upon a new stage to this war on Iran. It may not be what many expect (especially in financial markets). Yesterday Trump said inter alia that Hormuz was open and that Iran had agreed never to close Hormuz again; that Iran, with the help of the U.S., has removed, or is removing, all sea mines, and that U.S. and Iran would work together to extract Iran’s highly enriched uranium (HEU). Trump wrote:
“We’re going to get it together. We’re going to go in with Iran, at a nice leisurely pace, and go down and start excavating with big machinery … We’ll bring it back to the United States very soon”.
The President said earlier on Friday that Iran had agreed to hand over Iran’s HEU stockpile.
None of these claims were true. Either Trump was confabulating (holding to fantasies, albeit believing them to be true); or he was manipulating markets. If the latter – it was a success. Oil fell and markets soared. Reportedly, 20 minutes before the claim that the Strait of Hormuz was open and would never close again, a $760 million short on oil was placed… Someone ‘made a pile’.
All this turbulence created much confusion. Trump also said a new round of talks and an likely agreement with Iran would happen very soon — even during this weekend. The likelihood of talks is false. Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reports that “the American side has been informed via the Pakistani mediator that we [Iran] do not agree to a second round [of talks]”.
From the beginning of the mooted Pakistani-mediated ceasefire, Iran was supposed to allow the daily passage of a limited number of ships. However, this was always subject to Iranian conditions for transit passage.
The net result of Trump’s manipulations has been to make Iran re-assert its existing conditions on Hormuz, on its stocks of HEU, and on its ‘right to enrich’ in tighter, less flexible definition.
The Islamabad talks had already showed Iran that its 10-point framework — initially affirmed by Trump to form a “workable basis” for beginning of direct negotiations with Iran — was no such thing. The Iranian framework was brushed aside towards the end of the day, as the U.S. pivoted to its key touchstones for its intended victory roll: Iran abandoning uranium enrichment in perpetuity; relinquishing to the U.S. its stock of 430kg of 60% enriched uranium, and the opening of Hormuz — free of tolls.
In short, the U.S. position was simply a continuation of Israel’s long-established demands. This added experience of Friday’s U.S. deceit will only have served to confirm Iran’s conviction to be continually on their guard and to view the contrived confusion as a possible U.S. diversion from planned military escalation.
Iran, in refusing these key demands, triggered the U.S.’ sudden, end of day, pulling of the plug on Islamabad, and thus pointed up the pivotal context behind the U.S. ‘walk out’: Netanyahu was frustrated. Very frustrated. “As [Netanyahu] tells it, ‘the media’, that convenient all-purpose ‘villain’, has managed to cement the narrative that Israel lost the [Iran] war”, Ravit Hecht has written in Haaretz:
“Not many people understand the power of short, sharp and unequivocal messaging – better than Netanyahu … With time running short and his international standing eroding – Netanyahu is desperate to deliver at least one unequivocal success story from the ambitious goals he proclaimed in the first week of the war – when hubris and adrenaline still seeped into every government briefing”.
“Regime change in Tehran? No longer on the table. The vague goal of “creating conditions” for such a change has evaporated. Ending Iran’s ballistic missile program now seems wildly unrealistic; Netanyahu’s ministers acknowledge that as well. As for Iran’s network of regional proxies, its influence may become subtler, but few believe it can be dismantled altogether”.
“That leaves one card still in play: uranium”.
“Netanyahu’s circle hopes that, as in past crises, mounting pressure might compel Iran to export its enriched uranium stockpile. Netanyahu is staking everything on that outcome – or, on the possibility that renewed war could still destabilise the regime”.
This is why Vice-President Vance — who was almost hourly taking instruction from the White House or Tel Aviv— wound up the talks prematurely. A short sharp victory messaging on which Netanyahu’s future depends clearly was not about to emerge from the talks.
U.S. Constitutional U.S. lawyer, Robert Barnes (who is a friend of Vance), reports in an interview that:
“Trump began exhibiting signs of early dementia in September 2025 … He frequently confabulates, he routinely loses his temper and unleashes screaming rants and he is incapable of doing critical thinking. And – according to Barnes, in this state – Trump genuinely believes that the U.S. has vanquished Iran and does not comprehend the massive economic damage that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is doing to the global economy”.
In short, Barnes says that Trump’s delirium that Iran is at the point of capitulation reflects his impaired mental state — an impairment of understanding ‘reality’ (a panglossian interpretation that Secretary Pete Hegseth does his best to reinforce).
Like Netanyahu, Trump likely believes too, that pressure and more pressure on Iran could yield the triumphant Victory trophy of (figuratively) waving aloft 430 Kg of enriched uranium — either compelled to be given up by economic pressure, or alternatively dramatically seized on the ground by U.S. forces.
In the face of this crisis at the heart of the White House, Vice-President Vance reportedly (Barnes again) has been working feverishly behind the scenes to arrange a new meeting with Iran in Islamabad – despite the political process being deliberately impaired through massive Israeli air and ground attacks in Lebanon killing and injuring up to 1,000 persons (almost all civilians) during the ceasefire negotiations, as well as continued attacks since Trumpsupposedly “prohibited” Israel from attacking Lebanon at the start of the Lebanon ceasefire two days ago.
However, after much toing-and-froing by Pakistan, with messages flowing in many directions, “last night, an Iranian military official said that Tehran had issued a final ultimatum to the U.S. that Iran was within an hour of starting a military operation and missiles strikes on Israeli forces attacking Lebanon, which [finally] forced Trump to declare a ceasefire in Lebanon”,albeit to great anger in Israel. Israeli officials were livid, complaining that they were only informed post hoc.
It is not at all clear whether Israel will abide by it (they have already violated the ceasefire). Netanyahu, all Israel’s opposition leaders and a large majority of the Israeli public are untied in their desire for continued war.
The Islamabad talks failed firstly, because the gaps between the two sides were unbridgeable in a single session; and secondly, because the parties held different, and contradictory visions of the ground reality. The U.S., seemingly entered negotiations from the ‘hypothesis’ that the other party already was militarily destroyed and desperate.
Iran, by contrast, entered the talks with the conviction that it had emerged stronger than after the 12-day war. In their reading, this meant that the effect of the control of Hormuz and the Red Sea had not yet reached the stage at which the balance of pain could be said to be decisively in Iran’s favour — and certainly had not reached the point at which significant concessions from Iran might be appropriate.
What is likely to be the next stage? Well — more war. Bigger kinetic war with the focus likely to be on another massive series of missile strikes on mostly Iran’s civil infrastructure (since the Israeli/U.S. target bank was never intended to outlast a few days of strikes).
On 14 April, Russia’s Security Council warned that “ceasefire negotiations could be a cover used by Washington to prepare for a ground war [too] … The United States and Israel can use the peace talks to prepare for a ground operation against Iran, as the Pentagon continues to increase U.S. troop numbers in the region”.
Trump has now added a new front, intended to further maximize economic pain on Iran viasanctions and blockades. China is the primary target because, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent avers, China has been Iran’s biggest customer for discounted oil. Bessent claims the new dimension to be the financial equivalent to the earlier U.S./Israeli kinetic (military) strikes on Iran. He called it part of “Operation Economic Fury” — aimed at cutting off Iran’s revenue streams, especially from illicit oil sales and smuggling networks.
Bessent also said that the U.S. would impose secondary sanctions on any countries, companies, or financial institutions that continue buying Iranian oil or that allow Iranian money to flow through their accounts. He described this as a “very stern measure”. Bessent explicitly warned that if Iranian funds are proven to be moving through any bank’s accounts, the U.S. will apply secondary sanctions.
If this announcement is intended to coerce China into strong-arming Iran to capitulate to Israel and the U.S., then it constitutes an egregious misreading of the ground in both Iran and China. It will likely backfire on Trump.
This will constitute another economic front in the war — and extend the economic war to a global level.
Is it likely that China and Russia will not understand this statement as anything other than another U.S. attempt (after the Venezuela blockade) to squeeze China’s energy supply lines. Hormuz still remains open to Chinese vessels. Trump’s blockade attempt was the initial squeeze — and now he threatens to sanction Chinese banks and trade.
Sunday, April 19, 2026
Saturday, April 18, 2026
Colorado River projected to deliver one-fifth of normal water to Lake Powell after ‘astonishing’ March heatwave: The record-hot March conditions that led to a rapid melt-off of the snowpack in Colorado were echoed across the seven-state #ColoradoRiver Basin — The #Aspen Times #COriver #aridification – Coyote Gulch
Friday, April 17, 2026
Thursday, April 16, 2026
Wednesday, April 15, 2026
Fr. Bob's Reflection for the Second Sunday of Easter - Guest Post
In 1957, a Swedish film titled “The Seventh Seal” was released. In one memorable scene, Death appears in human form to a weary knight. What follows is a conversation about God.
The knight asks, “Why does God hide Himself? He never reveals Himself. Why doesn’t He stretch out His arm and touch us?”
Death simply responds, “He does not reach out. He just remains silent.”
The knight continues, “That’s right. He doesn’t do anything. Sometimes I wonder if He’s really out there.”
If we are honest, many of us can relate to that exchange. At some point in our lives, we have all thought like Thomas in today’s Gospel. We have wondered if God is really there; if we are alone, searching for some sign, some touch, some word of reassurance that He has not abandoned us.
That raises an important question: Is there a way to become more certain in what we believe? Can anything strengthen our faith?
The answer is yes. Faith, much like a muscle, grows stronger when it is exercised. When a muscle isn’t used, it weakens; over time it can even shrink. Faith works in a similar way. If we neglect it, it can wither. And, for all practical purposes, it can fade from our lives.
So, one practical way to strengthen faith is simply to live it.
There’s a story about a man vacationing alone in a cabin in the California mountains. He found himself lonely, restless and deeply unsettled. Something in his life felt off, and he began to believe that God had abandoned him.
In desperation, he prayed. He promised God he would do whatever was asked of him – if only he could regain some peace of mind. In that quiet moment, he sensed a simple response: “Start living the Gospel. Start living the teachings of Jesus, even if you don’t fully understand them.”
He made that decision. He began trying to live according to Christ’s teachings. It wasn’t easy. He stumbled at times and fell back into old habits. But that commitment slowly changed him. It brought clarity, peace and direction.
Later, in an article titled “The Living Word,” he summed up the experience this way: “I learned to hear the word – and to act on it.”
My friends, faith is a lot like life itself. It has peaks and valleys; its highs and lows. Even the most faithful among us have moments of doubt, just as Thomas did in today’s Gospel. Faith can flicker like a candle flame in a strong breeze.
But we should also remember this: faith is like the sun. It may be hidden behind clouds or seem to set for a time, but it never disappears. It is always there.
When our faith feels distant or hidden, we do not need to panic or lose heart. Instead, those moments can become opportunities – chances to show God our trust, even when certainty feels out of reach.
And when faith feels especially fragile, we can take comfort in the words of Peter:
“It may be necessary for you to be sad for a while because of the many trials you suffer. Their purpose is to prove your faith is genuine. Even gold, which can be destroyed, is tested by fire. And so, your faith, which is more precious than gold, must also be tested, so that it may endure. Then you will receive praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
Tuesday, April 14, 2026
Monday, April 13, 2026
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