Kiriakou had studied Arabic and was posted to Bahrain.
As soon as she had finished her speech, she spun off to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain where, early in the week, she was still trying to rally support for American policy on Iraq.
On February 23rd Bahrain's king jetted off to Saudi Arabia for further talks about the unrest.In Saudi Arabia itself, last week, seven men were thrown in jail for establishing a political party.
The Bahrain Grand Prix, on the other hand, is clearly being used by the ruling family as a way to try to solve its political problems; or at least to show off to the world that despite the uprising, Bahrain is one nation, and life is back to normal.
Talks aimed at resolving political unrest in the Gulf island kingdom of Bahrain look set to get off to an uncertain start.
For many based in the Gulf the fact that a leader of a political party in Bahrain – Hassan Mushaima of al-Haq – stopped off in Beirut en route to Bahrain, or that media outlets in Iran jingoistically and provocatively stir the pot, is ample evidence for concluding that Iran and its proxies are behind the recent troubles.
A territorial dispute with Bahrain was resolved in 2001, when the International Court of Justice awarded the Ḥawār Islands (just off the coast of Qatar) to Bahrain and gave Qatar sovereignty over Janān Island and the ruined fortress-town of Al-Zubārah (on the Qatari mainland).
The early successes of revolutionaries in Egypt seems to be touching off a number of other movements in the area, from Libya to Bahrain, and will likely spread further, as the fervor seems not to be damped by establishment brutality.
That reminds me of a moment yesterday in the news meeting with the Mercedes team, which won the race Sunday, when the team director tried to close off the discussion about Bahrain by saying that there were "many positives" from going to Bahrain for the race.
Hizbullah, he claimed, was training Bahrain's opposition; the leader of one of Bahrain's more radical opposition movements, al-Haq, had stopped off in Beirut to meet Hizbullah people on his way back from exile in London to Bahrain.
