Confidence in US Leadership .. Allies of US don't want Iran to know they are

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From Geostrategy Direct

Bahrain renews U.S. defense pact but didn’t want Iran to know

LONDON — Bahrain has secretly renewed its defense cooperation agreement with the United States.

The Gulf Cooperation Council state was said to have extended the defense accord with Washington until 2016. The renewal was conducted by the former administration of then-President George Bush and Congress was not notified.

“We’re in a situation where the Bahrain government and the U.S. are becoming ever more reliant on each other,” former U.S. Defense Department official Michael Rubin said.

Rubin said the secrecy probably reflected a request by Bahrain, which did not want to anger its neighbor Iran, accused of financing the Shi’ite revolt in the spring of 2011. On Sept. 1, Britain’s Financial Times reported that Manama requested a five-year extension of the defense pact.

For nearly 40 years, the U.S. Navy has based its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. A former Fifth Fleet commander, Vice Adm. Charles Moore, said the U.S. secret extension with Bahrain was probably connected to concerns in wake of Al Qaida’s suicide air strikes on New York and Washington in 2001.

“After we got into 9/11, there was a lot of talk about the long war,” Moore said. “There was probably a set of actions to extend our presence at the foreign bases that we had. It was probably one of these bureaucratic things extend the [defense agreements] for as long as you can get them.”

Bahrain has been deemed a major non-NATO ally of the United States and provides Washington with military facilities. But the agreement between Manama and Washington was not said to constitute a formal defense treaty.