The U.S. and Bahrain: How to Talk Just Tough Enough with an Ally (Time.com)

On Tuesday - just seven days after his country lifted 13 weeks of martial law - Bahrain's Crown Prince, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, met separately with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington. A White House statement said the President supported al-Khalifa's "ongoing efforts to initiate national dialogue" and that Bahrain's stability "depends upon respect for the universal rights of the people of Bahrain, including the right to free speech and peaceful assembly."

Coming after Obama lashed out at Bahrain's violent crackdown on peaceful protesters in a speech on May 19, his support was a public about-face that looks to repair ties with a key Middle East ally. It also appeared to signal that America will stop its public criticism of Bahrain's government even as it urges the Sunni-dominated regime to begin talks with opposition leaders. (See photos of protesters being routed from Pearl Square.)

The meetings represent "a shift in tone and indicate a softening of the U.S. stance towards Bahrain," says Shadi Hamid, research director at the Brookings Doha Center, "and show that the U.S. simply isn't serious about putting real sustained pressure on the regime right now." The effect of Tuesday's visit has been to put a band-aid on tensions between the two countries and is, Hamid says, "a green light" for Bahrain's government to go about its business without criticism or interference from the U.S. That business includes both the country's re-opening to international commerce scared off by the turmoil of the spring, and the final stages of a months-long violent crackdown on protesters, which this week saw security forces repeatedly attack Shi'a enclaves with rubber bullets and tear gas.

Since March 13, when Saudi tanks rolled into Manama and security forces began arresting anyone associated with the anti-government movement - including journalists and medical workers - the U.S. government has faced a conundrum. How does Obama reprimand an ally that houses the Navy's Fifth Fleet in a geopolitical arena that includes its regional nemesis, Iran? (See photos of the crackdown in Bahrain.)

"Bahrain has always been ground zero of America's inability to reconcile interests and ideals in the Arab Spring," says Hamid. "It's difficult for the Administration to handle and they haven't really found a way yet." Obama has also come under fire from international rights groups and Bahrain's Shi'as, who have repeatedly said his and Clinton's sporadic criticisms were mere lip service and that both should have taken a tougher public stance against the regime's violent tactics.

The White House said Tuesday that Obama urged al-Khalifa to follow through on "the government's commitment to ensuring that those responsible for human rights abuses will be held accountable," a marked shift in tone from May 19, when he lambasted the regime's destruction of more than 30 Shi'a mosques.

"We've called on the Obama administration to call out strongly and publicly and in no uncertain terms about the human rights violations that occurred," says Hans Hogrefe, chief policy officer at Physicians for Human Rights, which this week decried the sentencing of 48 doctors and nurses whose ministering to injured demonstrators led to their prosecution for participating in the protests. "We would hope that there would have been a more public discourse - it's important for the region to see that we measure human rights with the same yardstick everywhere, that we're not just condemning Syria and Libya all the time but let our friends off easy." (See if Obama's speech helps Bahrain's reformists.)

The U.S. government's aim this week was to emphasize the need for immediate talks about reform between Bahrain's regime and opposition officials. Though the Crown Prince has said he would be open to meeting with Shi'a leaders, Obama, in his May speech, echoed activists' frustration that it was impossible to begin negotiations when most of the opposition leadership was in jail. "The thing that's driving this visit to D.C. is that [Obama and Clinton] are trying to tell the Shi'a to actually negotiate. And to tell the royal family to negotiate," says Thomas Ferguson, senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. "The statement was blunt." Obama's solidarity is crucial for the fairly moderate Crown Prince, whose influence in Bahrain has declined as he fights the growing number of hard-line extremists within his own government.

At stake going forward is the U.S.'s relationship not just with Bahrain but Saudi Arabia, whose soldiers joined forces with Bahraini security officers in quelling the island nation's revolution in March. Many see the conflict in Bahrain as a proxy war between the Saudis and Iran, with the latter looking to seize on any perceived weakness in the relationship between oil-rich Saudi and America. (See how Bahrain is stuck between Saudi Arabia and Iran.)

"The U.S. has a fundamental interest in keeping its relationship with the Saudis on an even keel, and Bahrain is its biggest issue," says Joost Hiltermann, deputy Middle East director at the International Crisis Group. Obama "knows that Iran will exploit instability in the region. The current situation is feeding into Iranian interests, because the more you suppress the Shi'a, the more they will radicalize and look for external sponsors. So it's important for the U.S. to pressure the regime to open up political space and allow participation for all its people." This week, "they're insisting on the need for dialogue without preconditions as an inclusive exercise that leads to genuine political reform."

"Rights groups may say it's not doing enough publicly to criticize its close ally," Hiltermann continues. "But the government believes that private talks are more useful in this situation than public scorn." Before Clinton's meeting Tuesday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner alluded to the possibility of criticism - and echoed the government's months-long stance on its public treatment of its island ally. "We'll obviously raise our concerns," he told reporters. "Bahrain is a friend and partner, but we can be candid with them, as well." Though opposition leaders have long agitated for stronger public rebukes from the Americans, most now side with Sheikh Ali Salman, head of official opposition party al Wefaq, who said last month that the group was ready for negotiations. After months of violence, it's likely the country's Shi'a majority won't fault U.S. leaders for keeping their discussions with the Crown Prince largely private - as long as promises of talks are kept, and tear gas stops raining down on Manama.

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Gerry Adams: Queen regret not enough

Dublin, Ireland (CNN) -- Queen Elizabeth II's expression of sympathy for those who suffered during the long, bloody conflict between Ireland and England does not go far enough, the head of the Irish republican Sinn Fein party said Thursday.

Her "acknowledgement that the relationship between Britain and Ireland has not been entirely benign is a gross understatement," Gerry Adams said in a statement.

The queen is on a historic four-day visit to the Republic of Ireland, the first by a British monarch since Irish independence from London 90 years ago.

Adams, a pivotal figure in Northern Irish history as long-time leader of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political arm, said earlier that the queen's visit was "premature."

But that is mild compared to incendiary language he has used in the past, according to a journalist formerly based in Ireland.

"When the queen's cousin Lord Mountbatten was killed by the IRA in 1979, (Adams) said it was an execution that was fully justified," Toby Harden said.

Wednesday night, Queen Elizabeth expressed regret for the suffering of people on both sides.

"We can never forget those who have died or been injured, and their families. To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past, I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy," she said.

Adams said he thought her sympathy was "genuine."

But he said it was not enough, demanding that "the future policy of her government (be) about building an entirely new future based on genuine equality, and mutual respect."

The queen, who was applauded when she began her remarks Wednesday night in the Irish language, acknowledged the complex relationship between the neighbors separated by water and different cultures.

On Tuesday she laid a wreath at the Dublin's Garden of Remembrance, which honors those who fought for Irish freedom from British rule.

During a trip laced with historically significant gestures, the queen has visited the National War Memorial Gardens in Islandbridge and Croke Park Stadium, where British troops opened fire on a crowd watching a Gaelic football match in November 1920, killing 14. The massacre was sparked by the murder of 14 British intelligence officers by the Irish Republican Army.

The visit has prompted police to mount a major security operation amid threats of dissident republican violence. Ireland has spent an estimated $42 million on security for the visit, according to officials.

Scuffles between protesters and police broke out Tuesday afternoon in central Dublin and the Irish military defused a bomb on a bus headed to Dublin. The military had stopped a private bus in Maynooth, evacuated the passengers and found a "viable device" in the luggage compartment, a spokesman for the Irish national police said.

The Irish War of Independence led to the partition of Ireland in 1921. The majority of the island gained independence, but six of the nine counties of the province of Ulster chose to stay in the United Kingdom, eventually becoming Northern Ireland.

In the late 1960s, the conflict between mainly Protestant unionists who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK and largely Roman Catholic nationalists who want the North to be reunited with the rest of Ireland exploded into a political and sectarian war, known as the Troubles.

The ensuing three decades of violence between the Irish Republican Army and loyalists claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people, most of them north of the border, and while the Good Friday Agreement, signed in 1998, effectively ended the conflict, suspicions remain.

CNN's Peter Wilkinson and Fionnuala Sweeney and Journalist Peter Taggart contributed to this report.

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Vatican Gets Tough on Child Sex Abuse but Not Tough Enough (Time.com)

When the Vatican issued a letter on Monday ordering bishops across the world to draw up tough guidelines for dealing with priests who rape or molest children, it addressed only half the scandal that has been rocking the Catholic Church.

To be sure, when it comes to the abusive clerics, the Vatican's new edict takes a firm stand, obliging local bishops to cooperate with local law enforcement in reporting sex crimes and recommending that policies be put in place to exclude accused priests from public ministry if they pose a continued danger to minors or could be a "cause of scandal for the community." (See pictures of Pope Benedict XVI.)

But what Monday's letter fails to do is put in place any sanctions on the bishops who oversee those clerics, should they fail to follow through with the recommendations. Child abuse is by no means unique to the Catholic Church. What sets the scandal apart is the sustained and widespread effort by church authorities to cover up for and protect the accused. And, in this regard, the new guidelines change little. "No threat of penalty will deter a child molester from committing a child sex crime," says David Clohessy, national director of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which criticized the proposal as too lax. "But penalties can deter bishops from ignoring or concealing those crimes."

In drafting its directive, the Vatican has had to walk a fine line between ensuring its bishops cooperate with officials in the just prosecution of sex offenders under their authority while also ensuring their autonomy from civil authorities, especially in repressive regimes in East Asia or the Middle East, where the church can often have an antagonistic relationship with the state. Indeed, in the handling of individual cases, the letter specifically elevates the judgment of bishops over the civilian review boards that have been introduced in some countries, including the U.S. and Ireland.

But in its effort to make sure bishops retain their independence, the Vatican risks perpetuating what victims' groups say is a pattern that sees church officials place the protection of their priests over the well-being of their parishioners with few repercussions. For whatever reason, until recently, bishops have preferred to deal with clerical abuse internally - often transferring abusive priests from parish to parish - instead of handing them over to civil authorities. "The best explanation I can come up with is a profoundly misguided idea of what is in the good of the church," says Phil Lawler, editor of CatholicCulture.org. "They were paying more attention to its public image than to the spiritual, emotional and physical welfare of the faithful." (See the top 10 Vatican pop-culture moments.)

Doubly worrying is that the Vatican's new guidelines seem modeled on those set in 2002 in the U.S., where even with similar policies in place, the church continues to get hit with scandalous revelations. In February, a grand jury accused the archdiocese of Philadelphia of covering up decades of wrongdoing and keeping up to 37 priests who were suspected of child abuse in active ministry. The archbishop, Cardinal Justin Rigali, at first denied the accusation, but he later suspended 24 of the accused priests. "There were all the procedures in place for handling credible allegations," says Lawler. "But it was the bishop and his subordinates who were responsible for deciding what was a credible allegation."

And while the priests who allegedly committed the abuse face punishment, the man who failed to bring them to account has yet to suffer any sanction. Indeed, a few months later, Rigali was chosen to represent the church in a celebration in the Czech Republic in June. "As long as church officials who ignore and conceal abuse are tolerated and promoted, than nothing will change," says SNAP's Clohessy. "There simply have to be penalties for dreadful wrongdoing."

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Libyan rebel leader says NATO isn't doing enough

"Libyan rebels fire a rocket launcher toward pro-Gadhafi forces near Brega. Government forces bombarded rebels outside an oil town pushing them back as the regime said Gadhafi might consider some changes. "

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