이란, 2026년 바레인 영유권 주장 재강화
Iran Revives Its Claim to Bahrain After the War - Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs
이란이 바레인을 이란 영토라고 주장하며 지역 갈등이 심화될 수 있어, 투자자들에게는 불안요소로 작용할 수 있습니다. 특히 미국 제5함대 주둔과 같은 전략적 요소가 얽혀 있어, 바레인 및 관련 기업들의 주가 하락 가능성을 고려해야 합니다.
핵심 요약
2026년 이란의 카이한 신문 칼럼이 바레인 영유권 주장을 재강화하며 지역 긴장 고조 가능성.
핵심요약
- 2026년 6월 21일 카이한 신문 칼럼에서 이란이 바레인을 14번째 주로 주장
- 이란이 바레인 영토를 직접 타격한 전쟁 이후 첫 공식 주장
- 친이란 반대 세력의 소셜 미디어 활동 지속 중
- 바레인과 미국의 이산주의적 논리에 대한 용인 수준 시험 중
도입
이란의 바레인 영유권 주장이 2026년 6월 21일 카이한 신문을 통해 재강화되며, 중동 지역 긴장이 고조될 가능성이 높아졌습니다. 이 주장은 과거보다 더욱 확고한 어조로 제시되었으며, 최근 전쟁과 지역 내 정치적 변화에 대한 대응으로 볼 수 있습니다. 투자자에게는 이란의 전략적 의도와 바레인 정부의 대응 방침이 향후 지역 안정성에 미치는 영향이 핵심 관심사입니다.
본문 1: 이란의 영유권 주장 강화 배경
2026년 6월 21일 카이한 신문의 후세인 샤리아트마다리 칼럼은 이란이 바레인을 14번째 주로 주장하며, 과거보다 더욱 확고한 어조로 제시했습니다. 이 주장은 이란이 바레인 영토를 직접 타격한 전쟁 이후 첫 공식 주장으로, 이란이 바레인을 점유된 영토로 인식하고 있음을 보여줍니다. 이 칼럼은 이란의 전략적 의도를 반영하며, 바레인 정부의 대응 방침이 향후 지역 안정성에 미치는 영향이 핵심 관심사입니다. 이란의 영유권 주장은 바레인과 미국의 용인 수준을 시험하는 것으로 보이며, 향후 지역 긴장이 고조될 가능성을 시사합니다.
본문 2: 바레인과 미국의 대응 방안
바레인 정부는 이란의 영유권 주장에 대해 강경한 대응을 보일 가능성이 높습니다. 바레인은 이란의 주장이 지역 안정성에 미치는 영향을 고려하여, 국제 사회와의 협력을 강화할 것으로 예상됩니다. 미국의 경우, 바레인에 주둔한 5번째 함대 본부가 이란의 타격 대상이 된 바 있어, 향후 군사적 대응 가능성을 배제할 수 없습니다. 바레인과 미국의 협력 강화를 통해 이란의 영유권 주장에 대응할 것으로 보이며, 이는 지역 긴장을 완화하는 데 기여할 수 있습니다. 그러나 이란의 영유권 주장이 지속될 경우, 향후 지역 안정성에 부정적인 영향을 미칠 수 있습니다.
본문 3: 향후 전망
이란의 영유권 주장이 지속될 경우, 중동 지역 긴장이 고조될 가능성이 있습니다. 바레인과 미국의 협력 강화를 통해 이란의 주장에 대응할 수 있지만, 이란의 전략적 의도가 명확하지 않아 향후 전망이 불확실합니다. 투자자에게는 이란의 영유권 주장과 바레인 정부의 대응 방침이 향후 지역 안정성에 미치는 영향을 주시해야 할 필요성이 있습니다. 이란의 영유권 주장이 지속될 경우, 중동 지역 투자 환경이 악화될 가능성을 고려해야 합니다.
결론
이란의 바레인 영유권 주장이 2026년 6월 21일 카이한 신문을 통해 재강화되며, 중동 지역 긴장이 고조될 가능성이 높아졌습니다. 바레인과 미국의 협력 강화를 통해 이란의 주장에 대응할 수 있지만, 이란의 전략적 의도가 명확하지 않아 향후 전망이 불확실합니다. 투자자는 이란의 영유권 주장과 바레인 정부의 대응 방침이 향후 지역 안정성에 미치는 영향을 주시해야 할 필요성이 있습니다. 이란의 영유권 주장이 지속될 경우, 중동 지역 투자 환경이 악화될 가능성을 고려해야 합니다.
Original Article
Iran Revives Its Claim to Bahrain After the War - Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs
Recent developments have intensified concerns about Iranian ambitions toward Bahrain, with renewed assertions of historical claims and references to local support within the kingdom. Security crackdowns, sectarian tensions, and regional military confrontations have created conditions that can be leveraged for political and strategic messaging. Online opposition networks and longstanding influence efforts provide additional channels for amplifying these narratives. While no immediate action is guaranteed, the environment suggests continued pressure and heightened regional risk.
A June 21, 2026 Kayhan column by Hossein Shariatmadari “Let Us Not Keep Our Bahraini Compatriots Waiting” repeats, in sharper and more confident language than in past iterations, Iran’s claim that Bahrain is occupied Iranian territory whose people await “the first step” toward reunification with the homeland [Editor’s note: Kayhan is a Persian-language newspaper published in Tehran, Iran].
The column is not an isolated provocation. It lands after a war in which Iran struck Bahraini territory directly, accused Manama of hosting the U.S. 5th fleet HQ used against Iranian targets, and watched a wave of domestic Shiite sympathy for Tehran trigger an unprecedented internal security crackdown.
Combined with a sustained pro-Iranian opposition presence on social media, the column should be read as a renewed test of Bahraini and American tolerance for irredentist rhetoric at a moment when Iran has both the grievance and, potentially, the appetite to act on it.
Hossein Shariatmadari, Kayhan ’s editor and one of the most consistently anti-Bahraini-regime voices in the Iranian press, published “Let Us Not Keep Our Bahraini Compatriots Waiting” on Telegram and in Kayhan today. The column makes five claims in sequence:
This JCFA analysis sets out the longer arc of Iranian irredentism that Shariatmadari’s column draws on. It documents Iran’s historical claim to Bahrain as its “fourteenth province,” rooted in the 1602–1783 period of Persian rule, and Tehran’s sustained effort — well before the current war — to cultivate a distinct Shiite religious identity in Bahrain oriented toward the Iranian Supreme Leader as a source of religious emulation.
The analysis describes financial support, organizational assistance, and the channeling of weapons via Hizbullah to Bahraini Shiite networks, and frames Bahrain as a structural battleground between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, with Washington’s Fifth Fleet headquarters anchoring the U.S. stake in the outcome.
Published after the 2020 Abraham Accords, this analysis documents how Bahrain’s normalization with Israel sharpened Iranian rhetoric rather than created it.
It records IRGC statements threatening “harsh revenge” against the “executioner ruler of Bahrain,” Kayhan ’s own incitement of Bahrainis to “pick up arms,” and Iran’s continued sponsorship of the Saraya al-Ashtar (“al-Ashtar Brigades”) as an armed Shiite opposition network modeled on Lebanese Hizbullah.
It also notes Iran’s practice of amplifying Bahraini opposition statements, including from groups such as the Coalition Youth of the 14 February Revolution, as a deliberate instrument of pressure on the Al-Khalifa government.
Read together, the two JCFA analyses show that today’s column is not a rhetorical escalation invented for the moment; it restates a claim and a method (financial support, armed proxies, and amplification of local opposition voices) that Iran has pursued continuously since at least the Arab Spring, and that hardened further after the Abraham Accords.
The war has supplied Tehran with a new and more emotionally charged pretext: Bahraini state repression of citizens accused of pro-Iranian sympathies during the conflict.
Beyond the historical claim, Shariatmadari’s column is also a response to events of the past several months. During the recent war, Iran struck targets in Bahrain directly — among them facilities associated with the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama, which Tehran has long treated as a legitimate military target precisely because of the American military presence the column itself cites as evidence of foreign domination.
Iranian messaging throughout the war justified these strikes on the grounds that Bahrain, by hosting American forces and infrastructure used against Iran, had made itself a participant in the war rather than a neutral bystander — a framing that converts the kingdom’s alliance commitments into, in Tehran’s telling, an act of aggression deserving retaliation.
That framing met an unanticipated domestic complication for Manama: visible sympathy for Iran among segments of Bahrain’s Shiite population, including instances of people expressing relief or satisfaction at the targeting of U.S.-linked sites on Bahraini soil.
The government’s response — an arrest campaign targeting individuals accused of celebrating Iranian strikes, sympathizing with Tehran, or circulating related material online — has, in Shariatmadari’s column, been folded directly into the irredentist argument: the arrests are cited as proof that ordinary Bahrainis identify with Iran rather than with their own government, which the column treats as self-evidently disqualifying for Bahraini sovereignty claims rather than as an internal security and social-cohesion problem for Bahrain to manage.
This is a textbook case of Iran converting a wartime security crackdown by a third country into supporting evidence for its own territorial narrative.
Iran’s messaging machine does not operate only through Kayhan . The opposition account on X functions as a Bahraini Shiite opposition platform that consistently valorizes Iran, Khamenei, and the broader Axis of Resistance framing, and amplifies grievances against the Al-Khalifa government and the Fifth Fleet presence in language that closely parallels Kayhan ’s own. Such accounts give Tehran an indigenous-seeming voice inside Bahrain’s information space, allowing Iranian state media to cite “the Bahraini people themselves” — exactly the rhetorical move Shariatmadari’s column makes when it claims to know, “with certainty and on the basis of precise information,” that Bahrainis await Iran’s first move. Direct content from the platform could not be retrieved for verification in this report; the account is flagged here as a node in the broader Iran-aligned opposition ecosystem and merits continued monitoring.
The amplifier dynamic described above is unfolding against a live security episode. In the days immediately preceding Iran’s state funeral for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (July 4-9, 2026, following his assassination on February 28, 2026, during the U.S.-Israel war), Bahraini security forces sharply escalated restrictions on Shiite Ashura (Muharram) commemorations on June 25-26. Authorities confined processions and gatherings to registered ma’atams (mourning halls), imposed curfews generally ending at midnight or 2 a.m. in the capital, banned processions originating from mosques, and required that flags and banners carry only ma’atam names, with “political” slogans prohibited.
Dozens of preachers and eulogists were barred from participating. Security forces removed black flags, banners, and Ashura symbols in multiple Shiite villages; in one notable incident, around June 17, forces raided a mourning ceremony in Abu Saiba village near Manama to remove symbols and used tear gas after residents resisted, with footage circulating on social media.
At least ten documented cases of summonses, short detentions, or arrests involved ma’atam heads, mourners displaying flags or slogans such as “Ya Hussein,” and vendors of related items. Force, including tear gas, sound grenades, and rubber bullets, was reportedly used against some peaceful gatherings in residential areas, and the standing travel ban to Iran and Iraq remained in effect.
Bahrain’s Interior Minister, Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, framed the measures at a pre-Ashura security meeting as necessary to preserve the “religious nature” of Ashura against what he termed “politicization.”
He stated explicitly that mourning for Khamenei would be “prohibited and punishable” during the Ashura period, urged adherence to “older Bahraini rituals” rather than “Iranian revolutionary ones,” and described the security environment as shaped by Iran’s alleged “political project wrapped in a religious guise.”
The episode sits inside a broader post-war pattern: Bahrain has arrested dozens of citizens since February 2026 (41 in May alone) on allegations of IRGC links, espionage, or pro-Iran sympathy.
The government denies sectarian targeting and accuses Iran of interference; human rights organizations, including the Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB), characterize the Ashura measures as an escalation of religious-freedom restrictions targeting Shiite identity and expression.