The reports coming out of Bahraini capital about the plight of Pakistani expatriates are indeed frightening. At least two Pakistani expatriates have been killed and several others injured allegedly by pro-opposition forces in this Persian Gulf island state in recent days.
Around 20 families have taken shelter in a club and a school run by the Pakistani community after they had their businesses sacked and other property attacked by people from a group which has become increasingly hostile towards Pakistanis since anti-government demonstrations broke out in this tiny Arab state a few weeks ago.
These reports also claim that the Pakistan embassy in Manama has been finding it extremely difficult to respond to Pakistanis' woes because of a serious lack of senior staff members. Demanding protection, Pakistanis have already staged a demonstration outside the embassy.
As many as 60,000 Pakistani expatriates live and work in Bahrain. According to Bahraini Census 2010, Bahrain's population grew to 1.234 million, out of which more than 666,172 (54 percent) were non-nationals. The members of Pakistani community have become a target of hatred mainly because of their preponderance in police and armed forces who have been trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to quell the unrest caused by the tidal wave of revolt in the region. In a nut shell, Bahrain shows clear and unambiguous signs of a sectarian strife after the arrival of troops from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, much to the chagrin of Iran.
What are the prospects of the Arab Revolution which seems to have stuck in two huge sandstorms in Libya and Bahrain. One Middle East expert on Russia Today was of the view that the sense of excitement and euphoria in the Arab world a few weeks ago has been replaced by deep concerns and fears that the situation is fast degenerating into civil strife for the entire Arab world.
The other principal reason behind revolutionaries' despair is the setback to anti-regime forces in Libya where Qadhafi's troops are making advances towards further east to reclaim towns annexed by the anti-government forces in the last few weeks amid West's dithering over whether there should be a no-flying zone to help stop Qadhafi's atrocities against his own people.
Those who were doubting noted North Africa expert Arezki Daoud's optimism that Qadhafi will fall within February appear to be highly perceptive about the situation as the main question remains who will succeed the leadership of Qadhafi. Unlike Egypt and Tunisia, Libya has not the kind of army that can work towards articulating a democratic process for the people. As pointed out by Daoud and many others, Qadhafi is not the president of Libya in the same way that Ben Ali or Mubarak were in Tunisia and Egypt, respectively. Qadhafi's official role is 'Brother leader of the Fatah Revolution', a role that has no possible successor.
The leader of Libya is not even prepared to admit the existence of a mass rebellion against his rule. Speaking to a select group of western media persons a few weeks ago, an excited Qadhafi insisted (in English) that he is loved by his people who, according to him, would do everything to protect his life.
Though Qadhafi feels he has been betrayed by the US, he still seeks to win over the US president and the people through his admiration for President Obama and his "hatred" for al Qaeda with a view to finding a repeat of 2003 when he unilaterally abandoned the WMD plans for his rehabilitation.
"Let friend and foe alike know that America has the muscle to back up its words," Ronald Reagan said famously while ordering the Sixth Fleet in the Gulf of Sidre to destroy Libyan fighter jets after Qadhafi made a claim that the Gulf of Sidre belonged to Libya.
In The Age of Reagan, Sean Wilentz says that during his first year as president, Reagan put on a show of toughness against Qadhafi. "Qaddafi, an eccentric autocrat who had taken power after a coup d'etat in 1969, preached a peculiar blend of pan-Arabism, socialism and Islam, and long had been a strong supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and other international terrorist groups. At the end of 1970s, he established a measure of alliance with the Soviet Union, which placed him higher on the Reagan administration's hit list."
But Wilentz has noted that "yet apart from this passing encounter [Gulf of Sidre conflict], during his first term Reagan would take no major offensive against Qaddafi". Following Libya's successful rehabilitation in the West, a number of academics began to think whether the George W Bush administration was using Libya to point the way for Iran to disclose and scrap its nuclear weapons programs in exchange for closer economic ties with the United States.
This policy stance of the previous US administration vis-à-vis Libya that Washington shaped up only several years ago after Washington-Tehran ties remained disrupted for decades seems to have found its resonance in former senior US diplomat John Negroponte's recent talk at Charlie Rose Show in which he sought to justify US administration's "over-cautious" approach to Libya crisis.
Although, he clearly stated that the US could build up "towards some kind of intervention", he was more clear and categorical in his prescription to the crisis. According to him: "it will be preferable if local forces-principally the military, some tribal elements and members of civil bureaucracy-- were to take care of the situation rather than calling for outside intervention."