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Trevelyan claimed that Nasser had informed him that ‘that the accusations about his
activities against the British in Aden and Bahrain were groundless’. Trevelyan did
not accept Nasser’s views, as he believed that ‘Representatives of extremist parties
in both were received in Cairo and we believed that they were given material
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support’. The thesis will examine the relation between the Bahraini nationalist
movement and Nasser’s Egypt to explore the extent of the support (if it existed) and
if the Party really was influenced or its activities were dictated by Cairo.
Nasser was soon to turn to the Soviets for support, gradually ending his
honeymoon with the Americans, as he adopted a policy of ‘positive neutrality’ in the
Cold War. Egypt’s turn towards the East was felt and admired through nationalist
66
press, circulars, and actions in Bahrain, as this thesis presents. With the
materialisation of the West’s Northern Tier concept to defend the Middle East from
Soviet aggression into the Baghdad Pact arena, divisions intensified regionally as
Egypt opposed the Pact that included Iraq. Whilst Bahrain aimed to strengthen its
Police Force with the recruitment of Iraqi officers, the political party strongly
opposed the decision as this thesis illustrates.
A lot was at stake for Britain as it tried to deal with its own ally’s (the US)
intrigues, Soviet penetration into the Middle East, and nationalist forces. All three
threatened Britain’s position in the Middle East arena. In Sir Edward Grigg’s view,
the Middle East was ‘a region of life-and-death consequence for Britain and the
65 H. Trevelyan, The Middle East in Revolution (London: 1970), 71.
66 K. Wheelock, Nasser’s New Egypt: A Critical Analysis (London: 1960), 50, hereafter Nasser’s New
Egypt; S.G. Galpern, Money, Oil and Empire in the Middle East (Cambridge: 2009), 153; D. Carlton,
Britain and the Suez Crisis (Oxford: 1988), 7; and W.Z. Laqueur, The Soviet Union and the Middle East
(London: 1959), 319.
© Hamad E. Abdulla 17
