Bahrain proving to be key
location for Navy in Middle East
By Steve Liewer,
Stars and Stripes
MANAMA, Bahrain — Like a camel sticking its nose under a Bedouin tent, the U.S.
Navy’s presence in the Persian Gulf started with a single ship.
That one vessel, a seaplane tender, took its place alongside a small squadron of
British destroyers at a desolate pier near Manama in 1949.
"It used to be just a couple of buildings," said Peter Swartz, a Middle East
expert at the Center for Naval Analyses, a private firm that advises Pentagon planners.
"There was no base."
More than half a century later, the camel has long since found its way indoors. The
Navy has erected security walls around its expanding Bahrain garrison of some 1,200
sailors, who in turn manage an entire carrier battle group now perpetually deployed in the
Gulf. Thousands more Army and Air Force personnel under the Tampa-based U.S. Central
Command established permanent camps in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
"The Navy used to be all alone," Swartz said. "Now it’s totally
enmeshed with other forces in the area."
Still, the Persian Gulf region remains the Navy’s show. Vice Adm. Charles W. Moore
Jr., commander of the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, is the highest-ranking officer in the
region. Diplomatically, America casts a big shadow. With so much of the world’s oil
supply passing through the Strait of Hormuz, even a local conflict is likely to spark U.S.
intervention.
The Navy’s presence gives the United States a big leg up if President Bush should
decide to launch an attack on Afghanistan’s Taliban regime.
Under Britain’s wing
Since the 19th century, the Persian Gulf had been something like an English lake,
surrounded by British outposts and sheikdoms made friendly through trade. The discovery of
oil in Bahrain in 1932 started the transformation of the Middle East from a desert
backwater to a strategic focal point for the Western powers.
During World War II, the Navy visited the Gulf frequently. Middle East oil fueled the
Soviet war machine, and the British and the Americans supplied the Russians with arms and
goods through the region when other routes were blocked.
Friendly governments ruled in Iraq and Arabia, and the CIA helped install the
pro-Western shah in Iran. Egypt, Ethiopia and Pakistan also counted themselves as U.S.
allies.
"It was a friendly area, but bordering up against a decidedly unfriendly Soviet
Union," Swartz said.
Oil and trouble
When things started to go bad in the late 1950s and 1960s, the United States would
inevitably blame Soviet adventurism, but many Arabs would then — and still do —
point to America’s staunch backing of Israel.
In response to periodic crises in the region, the Navy added a couple of destroyers to
its fleet in Manama. Great Britain, financially and militarily unable to maintain its vast
empire, pulled its last ships out of Bahrain in 1964, leaving the Americans there alone.
Three years later, Israel fought Egypt, Syria and Jordan — the country’s
third war in 19 years against its Arab neighbors. Once again, Israel won. After this
defeat, the desperate Palestinians launched a terrorist war against Israel and its Western
allies that continues to this day.
In response to this recurring instability, Swartz said, the Navy created the Middle
East Command — three small ships under the command of a rear admiral.
"The U.S. Air Force had come and gone in Saudi Arabia," he said. "The
Navy was carrying much of the weight of our forces there. We knew it was a major
diplomatic as well as military outpost."
After the fourth Arab-Israeli conflict — another Israeli victory — in 1973,
the U.S. Navy’s Japan-based 7th Fleet started sending carrier task forces to the
Indian Ocean, just outside the Gulf. Egypt broke with the Arab world and signed an
historic peace treaty with Israel. But in 1979, a Muslim fundamentalist backlash toppled
the shah of Iran, America’s closest friend in the Arab world.
Fearing the spread of Islamic fundamentalism to other friendly regimes, the United
States boosted its profile in the Gulf. The United States sided with Iraq and propped up
its president, Saddam Hussein, in that country’s bloody eight-year stalemate with
Iran.
In the early 1980s, the Defense Department created the U.S. Central Command. It has
guided all U.S. forces, Navy and otherwise, in the region ever since.
Into Desert Storm
Between 1986 and 1989, the United States initiated Operation Earnest Will, the effort
to reflag Kuwaiti oil tankers as American merchant vessels, and protect them with U.S.
Navy ships against Iran-Iraqi naval skirmishes. At any given time, Swartz said, between
five and 18 American destroyers, frigates and cruisers steamed in the Gulf.
In August 1990, Saddam’s forces rolled into Kuwait and conquered the tiny oil
kingdom with barely a fight. For the first time, U.S. carriers steamed into the Gulf
itself while President George Bush rallied United Nations allies to help retake Kuwait.
Six months later, they did.
The war marked a milestone. Coming so soon after the demise of the Soviet bloc, it
insured that the United States would keep a military presence — especially a Naval
presence — permanently in the Gulf.
"Prior to Desert Storm, we didn’t have much at all that was formal,"
said Andrew Winner, a Middle East scholar with the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis
in Cambridge, Mass. "Desert Shield and Desert Storm changed everything."
Here to stay?
The Navy created the 5th Fleet in Bahrain, and placed it under a three-star admiral. It
began expanding Naval Support Activity Bahrain, ramping up operations to support a battle
group. No large ships are based there, but ships are rotated for three- to six-month
deployments from the Navy’s other fleets in Japan and the United States.
Bahrain looks to be a fortunate choice for a permanent U.S. Navy presence. Although
there is some tension between its Shi’ite Muslim majority and the ruling Sunni
minority, it is a friendly, tolerant place lacking the angry fundamentalist fringe that
has in other places turned against Americans or pro-Western Arab governments.
"Bahrainis are rather laid back," said John Hillis, a professor of American
Studies at the University of Bahrain. "They just don’t worry about this kind of
thing."
Still, the Navy has always kept its profile low in Bahrain. The 5th Fleet stood
untouched by terrorism until a suicide attack against the USS Cole last October killed 17
sailors during a refueling stop in Yemen.
No one is sure what the recent terrorist attacks will mean for U.S. relations with the
Gulf Council states. But Swartz doesn’t believe any of them are likely to turn
against the U.S. military.
"They’re comfortable with the Navy presence," Swartz said. "They
live in a dangerous neighborhood, but they’ve got a powerful amount of
protection."
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