Washington’s World: February 28th – March 6th, 2011

Events in Libya that have now led to the temporary closure of the US Embassy have preoccupied President Obama and his top national security team. There is deepening concern about the course of developments there and about the US ability to influence them. Urgent efforts are underway to fashion an international consensus at the UN and elsewhere on the way forward. However, for all the frantic activity over Libya, US officials believe that the intensifying challenge to the Bahrain government provides the greater threat to US interests. As they explain it to us, State Department officials portray Libya as a crisis taking place within “understandable parameters.” This requires very substantial coordination measures on such matters as the evacuation of foreign nationals, refugee flows, the imposition of sanctions and possible no-fly zones. But Libya does not represent systemic risk to US strategic interests. By contrast, a collapse of the Khalifa monarchy in Bahrain would have direct implications for Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have told the US that they are prepared to intervene in Bahrain should that prove necessary to stabilize the government. This would be carried out by the National Guard (SANG) which is well tested in battle. An eventuality of this sort would prompt some very uncomfortable choices for the Administration – as one senior official put it to us, “between history and the oil price.” Intensive exchanges are underway with the Saudis and Bahrainis to seek a non-violent outcome to the tensions there. US officials draw some modest encouragement that their interventions are proving effective from the relatively moderate statements of the Shia cleric Hassan Mushaima on his return from exile. These dramas in the Middle East are obscuring what Pentagon officers privately describe to us as a “deteriorating security situation” in Afghanistan and the continuing stalemate with Paskistan over the detention of an American official now acknowledged to be a CIA contractor. Drama on the domestic front also continues over the federal budget that must be voted on by March 4th to avoid a government shutdown. Hopes are rising that a temporary compromise will be found that will allow government operations to continue, at least for another two weeks.