Bahrain’s force majeure is John Kiriakou’s reading of the kingdom’s declaration, during the 2026 Iran war, that it could no longer meet its energy supply commitments — a step he treats as severe for Bahrain and immaterial to everyone else.
The declaration
Kiriakou glossed the term before the fact. “Bahrain it declared force majeure, which is a legal term in contract law that says, we are no longer able … to honor our commitments under this contract. They’re saying we can no longer supply energy as the state Bahraini oil company said that they could.”[1]
Asked whether that was a major problem, he split the question in two. “It’s a major problem for Bahrain, but it won’t be a major problem for the global economy because Bahrain only produces about a hundred thousand barrels a day.”[2]
Where the exported oil comes from
The reason the small production figure does not settle the matter for Bahrain is the second half of Kiriakou’s account. “They consume about a hundred thousand barrels a day, but the Saudis have gifted Bahrain a small offshore oil field and that’s the oil that they sell.”[2]
He describes the arrangement as a subsidy in kind: “it’s like a little bit of a little bit of free money just to make sure that the Bahrainis can keep up with the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.”[3]
On that structure the export income is not a supplement but the whole of the kingdom’s oil revenue — and it cannot move: “if there’s force majeure and they can’t export it, which they can’t cuz for all intents and purposes the Strait of Hormuz is closed right now.”[3]
Kiriakou served in Bahrain and returns to it repeatedly as the Gulf state whose internal arrangements he knows best; his account of its Sunni ruling family and Shia majority is recorded at Bahrain’s naturalisation policy.