dismay with the Islamic Republic, saying publicly to an American audience what many visitors to the Arab states of the Persian Gulf say they hear all the time in private.
This time it was Bahrain’s ambassador to the United States, Houda Nonoo, who told The Washington Times in an interview that she fears her country could become the first casualty of a nuclear-armed Iran.
In July, it was Nonoo’s counterpart from the United Arab Emirates, Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba, who startled Washington when he said he preferred the military option to a nuclear Iran. Nonoo declined to express a preference: “That’s the million-dollar question,” she said.
But she didn’t go easy on Iran. “Iran has had claims in the past on Bahrain,” Ambassador Nonoo said. “The latest was on their 30th anniversary in February 2009, where they mentioned Bahrain as the 14th province—very similar to [Saddam Hussein’s] Iraq mentioning Kuwait as their 19th province.”
She said, “We’re a small country, we’re just across the pond,” noting that the island nation is “just 26 miles away from Bushehr,” the Iranian port city that hosts a nuclear power reactor. Many in Bahrain have expressed fear that an accident at Bushehr could harm Bahrain.
Nonoo made clear Bahrain’s political fear: “If Iran has [a nuclear weapons] capability, nobody is going to be able to stop them.”
Bahrain is ruled by a Sunni monarchy, but the majority of the people are Shiites who chafe under repressive rule. After months of riots, Bahrain’s government recently arrested scores of Shiites on charges of plotting a government overthrow.
Bahraini officials have said they are not charging the detainees with acting on orders from Tehran, but observers say Bahrain constantly sees Iran’s hidden hand in its domestic unrest.
Simon Henderson, a Persian Gulf analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told The Washington Times, “I’ve visited Bahrain and spoken to senior Bahraini officials, and although in public they are cautious not to inflame their delicate relations with Iran, they say in private that Iran is a malevolent force against the region in general and Bahrain in particular.”
He said, “At the very least, they fear instability in their own country but also Iranian-supported insurrection and—in a worst-case scenario—an Iranian takeover.”
“If they woke up tomorrow and there was smoke emerging from Natanz after a bombing raid, they would be very happy,” he said, referring to the Iranian uranium enrichment facility.
Shmuel Bar, director of studies at the Israel-based Institute of Policy and Strategy, echoed Henderson’s assessment and extended it to neighboring states. “They’d be very relieved, despite the fallout,” he said. “This is not speculation.”
On the issue of sanctions, Ambassador Nonoo was downbeat on their odds for success. “The sanctions never had a chance of working because they’ve placed so many sanctions before, and they’ve never worked,” she said. “Why was this one going to be any different?”
Two days after publication of the interview, the Bahraini Foreign Ministry issued a statement that said her comments “appear to have been inaccurately reported or have been misunderstood.” But the statement pointedly did not contradict anything that Nonoo had said.