HRW’s Roth: “Get Tough” on Bahrain, Saudi Arabia

Photo Credit: Foreign Policy

In his contribution to Foreign Policy‘s “10 Problems Obama Could Solve Right Now,” Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, suggests that a number of governments the U.S. has been closely allied with “[be] shown the door when it comes to unconditional U.S. support.” Roth says, “In this new world, standing up for human rights reflects not only America’s values but also its interests. It should be at the heart of U.S. policy, not an option of convenience. If Obama wants to bolster his legacy in his second term, he can and should get tough on some of the United States’ most unsavory friends and allies.” He adds, “The Arab Spring showed nothing if not the folly of relying on strongmen to bring stability.”

In the Middle East, Roth recommends that the United States’ relationships with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain must be reevaluated. For the former, he says “the Saudi monarchy holds thousands in arbitrary detention, imposes archaic restrictions on women, suppresses most dissent, mistreats its Shiite minority, and insists that the neighboring Bahraini monarchy crush its pro-democracy movement. Obama has been silent.”

On Bahrain, Roth writes, Bahrain “is the most glaring exception to Obama’s generally supportive posture toward Arab Spring demonstrators. The ruling al-Khalifa family uses lethal force, torture, and arbitrary detention to crush protests. Yet out of deference to Saudi sensibilities and fear of losing the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet base, the Obama Administration has allowed its security relationship with Bahrain to trump its concern for the rights of Bahrainis — a selectivity that undermines its broader support for Arab freedom.”