On June 23, in a joint announcement, Bahrain and Iran said they would take steps to restore diplomatic ties. However, the move is just the latest sign that Bahrain is emerging from more than a decade characterized by caution. The announcement came in the wake of Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani’s visit to Tehran and meeting with his counterpart, acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani. The move toward restoring relations with Iran follows a similar initiative by Saudi Arabia in 2023 and parallel moves by the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait to upgrade relations and return their ambassadors to Tehran the previous year. Bahrain and Iran had maintained full, if relatively perfunctory, diplomatic relations until 2016, when Manama followed Riyadh’s lead in cutting relations after violent Iranian protesters attacked Saudi diplomatic posts in Iran.
Expectations for a Cool Rapprochement
While an important step, a number of factors are likely to keep relations between the two countries relatively restrained. For one thing, Bahrain’s normalized relations with Israel through the 2020 Abraham Accords will continue to be viewed in Tehran with suspicion and concern. Moreover, Iran has generally adopted a harsher line toward Bahrain on this account than the UAE, a fellow Abraham Accord signatory, for what it views as diplomatic heresy, a difference perhaps explained by vulnerabilities in Bahrain and opportunities in the UAE Iran has traditionally sought to exploit.
In addition, Bahrain and Iran represent profoundly different types of regimes, one a small, status quo power and the other an assertive, if blundering, revisionist regional power, intent on undermining the long-standing U.S.-led international order and the Gulf-based security architecture the United States has put in place over the decades, with Bahrain playing a key role through hosting the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and 5th Fleet. Bahrain is moving ahead with steps to restore relations although it is well aware that Iran has a history of combining diplomatic relations with unattributed or deniable bullying behavior, aimed at intimidating its Gulf Arab neighbors into hedging away from the United States or at reinforcing a softer – and less conditional posture – toward Iran.
History of Relations – and Recent Iranian Meddling –
Strident irredentist discourse in Iran, evident most recently in eruptions in 2022 and 2023, also points to the prickly history of relations between the two countries. In such instances, Iranian officials and commentators have routinely, if dubiously, pointed to Iranian history to insist that Bahrain was a part of Iran, representing its 14th province. Bahrain has continually objected and over the past decade routinely accused Iran (in periods both before and after severing relations) of having supported efforts, since the Arab Spring protests, to de-stabilize Bahrain by training and equipping violent Bahrain groups intent on trying to overthrow the monarchy, charges validated by U.S. security and intelligence sources.
Sources of Bahraini Confidence Enabling the Initiative
That Bahrain is forging ahead to restore ties, despite the persistent evidence of factors that could inhibit relations, points to significant Bahraini confidence in taking this step. Three factors help illuminate the sources of this confidence.
First, Bahrain signed in 2023 a security agreement with the United States. While the Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement remained relatively restrained in its language, Bahraini officials have made clear they believe they now have the security assurances they need from the United States, a function of the repeated references in the pact to U.S. intent to strengthen Bahrain’s defense capabilities and to consult on the appropriate response to any external threats. Certainly, when the agreement is interpreted in light of the forceful, long-term U.S. military presence in the country (with upwards of 9,000 military and civilian Department of Defense employees), the bolstering of Bahraini confidence after signing the agreement is understandable.
Second, Bahrain’s agreement to restore diplomatic ties with Iran fits into a self-reinforcing dynamic that has gathered steam in the region over the past half-decade emphasizing de-escalation, retrenchment, and diplomatic maneuver, as initiatives for confrontation and external intervention have exhausted themselves. This dynamic was prominent, for example, when Bahrain along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE resolved their dispute with Qatar at the Gulf Cooperation Council summit in early 2021 in Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia. That multilateral resolution has been reinforced by the bilateral steps of the parties involved, including Manama restoring diplomatic relations with Doha in 2023 and recently exchanging ambassadors, consolidating the trajectory of improved relations. Saudi Arabia’s strong push to build on a cease-fire and end its intervention in Yemen as well as Gulf countries’ normalizing relations with President Bashar al-Assad’s Syria are also examples of this key regional dynamic.
In addition, the move by Bahrain and the UAE to normalize relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords – although a complicated development also partly attributable to U.S. pressure – is emblematic of this regional dynamic favoring diplomatic maneuver over confrontation. Normalization with Israel also underscores Bahraini confidence on the regional and international stage, bolstered, appropriately for a small power, by that great power support and the assurance Bahrain gained with the knowledge it was moving in tandem with neighboring – and influential middle power – the UAE. It perhaps points as well to some temporary outer limits on that confidence: Bahrain’s diplomatic moves since the start of the Israel-Hamas war October 7, 2023, couched in a degree of ambiguity, nevertheless clearly signal caution and a degree of tactical retrenchment in handling relations with Israel, given the regional upheaval prompted by the war in Gaza.
Internal Developments Also Signal Confidence
Third, developments inside Bahrain also point to regime confidence on a number of fronts. Most recently, the king pardoned more than 1,500 prisoners, most of them convicted of crimes in the decade-long crackdown on Arab Spring unrest and its aftermath. While some pardon gesture around the end of Ramadan is traditional, the extensive scope of this royal pardon surprised observers. The pardons – and the long-gestating, carefully implemented criminal justice reforms emphasizing alternative sentencing that preceded them – have made clear that Bahrain feels confident enough to pivot away from crackdown and convictions, in order to shift the focus over time to reform and reconciliation. On a separate (but parallel) domestic track, reformist-oriented Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa saw his power and influence augmented when he became prime minister upon the death of his long-serving and hard-line great uncle, Prince Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, in 2020. The crown prince has long been viewed as an advocate for reforms, in the economy and in criminal justice.
With this diplomatic initiative to restore relations with Iran, Bahrainis are signaling to the Iranians and the region they feel confident enough to modestly invest in, and assume the risks of, such a relationship. While this is unlikely to fundamentally alter the basic contours of a perennially difficult relationship, it will likely normalize the situation and return relations to a manageable status quo. And it allows Bahrain to play to its strengths, bolstering dominant trends in the region road tested by its more powerful Gulf Arab partners, focused on de-escalation, diplomatic maneuver, and normalization, and reinforced with obtained or sought-after U.S. security guarantees.