Two weeks ago, President Donald Trump signed the United States on with the Sunni Muslim states of the Persian Gulf in a meeting with their leaders in Saudi Arabia during his recent overseas tour. Monday morning, six of the states in the region broke off relations with Qatar, easily the most progressive of the Arab members of the group.
Bahrain, Egypt, one of the governments in Libya, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the faction in the Yemen civil war backed by Saudi Arabia and the US broke diplomatic relations with the Qatar emirate Monday. Their beefs are basically what make it the most reasonable of the Persian Gulf mini-states in terms of policy.
Qatar created and funds the news network Al Jazeera, which began broadcasting in 1996. Al Jazeera is noted for its aggressive reporting, including on developments in Israel and its neighbors, exactly what makes the rulers of the Gulf and other states, including Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, not like it. Qatar has developed a sometimes cooperative relationship with Shiite Iran, including in natural gas fields, the chief source of Qatar’s income. In 1997, Qatar launched Education City, where several US universities operate.
The other states also accuse it of supporting or taking a sometimes overly tolerant approach to the Islamic State, al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood, feared by most of the crowned heads of the region. That will also be the basis for the anti-Qatar states’ hope of US support of their crackdown.
The problem for the United States in their effort to put pressure on and isolate Qatar is the close US military relations that exist. It hosts the largest air base used by the United States in the region, and there are an estimated 10,000 US troops stationed there at any given time. America, in principle at least, is also in favor of the approach of Qatar to freedom of the press and its efforts to bridge the gaps between competing Middle Eastern and other groups. Qatar, for example, has hosted rival Afghan groups, including the Taliban, in their efforts to negotiate an end to the 16-year-old war there.
The split between Qatar and the other six states is also destructive of what is supposed to be a joint effort to combat the Islamic State. It was supposed to have been moved forward by Trump’s meeting with the Sunni leaders in Riyadh in May.
What the six opponents are seeking is a radical change of direction in Qatari policy in their areas of interest. There is even the threat of a Saudi invasion to overthrow its emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, or Saudi support of a coup d’etat against the Doha government. They should receive no US approval of or support in such an enterprise. It is hard not to connect the Riyadh meeting with Monday’s action by the six states. Let’s hope there was no even wink-of-the-eye US approval of the action against Qatar in the meetings in Riyadh. So much for the US policy investment in Sunni unity versus the IS.
The US relationship with Qatar has proved valuable for many years and should not be jettisoned carelessly now, particularly at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
