THE United States (U.S.) has about 1,000 military bases in over 130 countries, a large number of which house dictatorial governments.
These bases enable the U.S. to be the global police person, and to also guarantee that no other country could challenge the U.S. for this police job. In executing its role as the global police, the U.S., invariably, engages in imperialist conduct. Imperialism happens when one country inflicts its will on another country vis-à-vis intimidation or concrete use of coercion.

But, today, I want to focus some observations on the U.S. and its relationship to the Middle East.

In 2004, Zogby International Surveys related to 3,300 Arabs in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, asking them to indicate “the best thing that comes to mind about America;” nearly all those polled responded “nothing at all” (Chung and Halperin 2004).

Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen represent the pillars of the U.S. Middle East policy, where currently pro-democracy movements are huge in their demand for change (less so in Saudi Arabia).

A bridge links Bahrain with Saudi Arabia, where both countries are allies to the U.S. Ever since 1947, the U.S. has had a naval presence in Bahrain, and from 1991, Bahrain has become the home to the U.S. Naval Support Activity Bahrain, and the U.S. Fifth Fleet comprising 15 warships and an aircraft carrier; and Saudi Arabia accommodates a good number of U.S. military bases in conjunction with providing the U.S. with a favourable trade policy.

These are reasons to explain the U.S. determination to achieve total stability in Bahrain, in order to prevent the spread of protests into Saudi Arabia; the bridge-link provides an uneasy closeness for both countries.

Hence, to restore some level of stability in Bahrain and to sustain Saudi Arabia’s alliance, U.S. President Barack Obama’s admonition of the Bahrain regime’s violence against the pro-democracy protesters, only amounts to asking both sides to initiate a dialogue; in stark contrast to Libya where he claimed that Gadhafi has no legitimacy to remain in power, and, therefore should step down.

It is possible that the purpose of the recent deployment of 1,000 Saudi Arabian troops to Bahrain might be to quell the uprising in that country, in order to suppress any ambitions for revolution in Saudi Arabia; this could be possible by virtue of the close physical proximity of the two countries via the bridge-link.

Victory for the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain could spell the end of the Sunni-governing Khalifa constitutional monarchy that has ruled Bahrain since 1783, and possibly too, an end to the U.S. naval presence in Bahrain.

The protesters, largely Shiites, are demanding a greater share of governance from the Sunni ruling family.

The other pillar of the Middle East policy is Yemen, which is a U.S. friend, too, in the war on terror. The U.S. maintains a naval base in Yemen. For these reasons, Obama’s denunciation of the Yemeni regime’s violence against the pro-democracy protesters remains half-baked.

Iraq is the other pillar of the U.S. Middle East policy, where its measures are ubiquitous. The U.S. government set up something called the Green Zone in Baghdad, which houses a huge embassy, classy hotel, and which has steel-reinforced concrete walls; Americans can shut themselves within these walls in the Green Zone and exert a kind of colonial influence over Iraq; as the Green Zone functions in accordance with the norms of internal colonialism.

The current unrest in the Middle East may be signalling a possible end of American influence in that region. We are beginning to see signs of this development. Quite recently, leaders in the pro-democracy movement in Egypt rebuffed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton because of America’s sustained backing of Hosni Mubarak for nearly 30 years, and their lukewarm support for the protesters at Tahrir square. This is the same lukewarm, ‘sitting-on-the-fence’ approach that the U.S. is currently adopting toward the pro-democracy movements in Bahrain and Yemen.

The people of this planet had better understand that the U.S. never gets involved with something, unless there is a greater advantage to itself; the U.S., if not plainly, certainly in a camouflaged way, wants to introduce American law, American order, American civilization, and the American flag in distant lands; the U.S. sees the entire world as U.S. homeland.