Qatar paying price of pioneering freedoms in a region of tyrants

Hence he knew what to harp on in his one-on-one chat with the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.
Informed that Qatar was among the Gulf’s leading funders of terrorism, Trump reiterated the point several times even as he rejoiced at the prospect of selling Qatar “beautiful” American weaponry. Apparently no one had informed him that his Saudi hosts and the UAE fall firmly into the same category. And there is some doubt as to whether he was aware that Qatar is home to the region’s largest US military base.
Shortly afterwards, Qatari news websites quoted Sheikh Tamim as declaring that that Saudi-led hostility towards Iran was unwarranted, and wondering how long the Trump presidency would last. The concerns are valid in both cases, but Doha immediately claimed the websites had been hacked – and a subsequent FBI-assisted investigation purportedly showed that Russian hackers might have been responsible, possibly working freelance for a foreign power.
By then Saudi Arabia and the UAE – alongside Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen (whose government lacks legitimacy and meaningful authority) and one of the factions claiming to rule Libya – had already broken off diplomatic ties with Qatar.
Qatar has been in the naughty corner before, just three years ago. But it’s much more serious this time around, the equivalent of being not just ostracised or imprisoned, but also subjected to the pain and humiliation of a hundred lashes.
Qatari citizens have joined diplomats in receiving expulsion orders. The sealing of borders deprived Qatar of 40 per cent of its food supplies. If the militant Islamic State group and its associates can be accused of violating the sanctity of the holy month of Ramadan through terrorist attacks, doesn’t Saudi-UAE belligerence towards Qatar deserve comparable condemnation?
After all, families have been divided and the threat of food scarcity enhanced in a nation that doesn’t grow much, but has the resources to purchase what it requires – and plenty to spare for developing its regional clout.
The fact that it challenges Saudi hegemony in the process ought to be a positive in the eyes of the international community. It cannot match Saudi Arabia, or even the UAE, for that matter, as a consumer in the US-led arms trade.
It is nonetheless interesting that whereas Trump has closely aligned himself with the Saudis, the less ignorant members of his administration, including Exxon chief-turned Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, are considerably more balanced in their pronouncements.
Qatar has reputedly been among the sponsors of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Syrian outfit formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, and Qatari individuals – albeit not necessarily the ones sanctioned by the Saudis – are suspected of helping to finance al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. But the same suspicion extends pretty much across the Gulf states. Going by their own statements, what concerns the Saudis a great deal more is Qatar’s attitude towards Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Hezbollah and Hamas pose no direct threat to the Saudis. They are both the consequence of Israeli policies, in Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories, and therefore perceived as foes by Israel. Could it be purely coincidental that Saudi Arabia shares this attitude, as well as Israel’s implacable hostility towards Iran? And – surprise, surprise – another key demand is that Qatar must rein in, if not abolish, Al Jazeera, the television network that regularly ruffles feathers in the Middle East, and has been a particular bete noire for Egypt’s dictator Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The Muslim Brotherhood, in all its incarnations, is hardly a model of democratic leadership, yet Saudi disenchantment with this alternative to hereditarily reinforced Salafism most likely stems from the Brotherhood’s association with democracy. The very idea of a popular say in governance is anathema to the Gulf autocracies – including Qatar. Yet Qatar is at least able to weigh alternatives, albeit outside its own terrain. Much to Saudi dismay, it backed the Arab Spring uprisings. The fact that none of them has come to fruition owes at least something to the ready supply of Saudi petrodollars for authoritarian alternatives.
The Saudis have also succeeded in exposing the facade of “Sunni unity” set up for Trump’s benefit as a farce. Turkey, alongside Iran, has offered to meet Qatar’s food needs, and neither Kuwait nor Oman is complicit in punishing the recalcitrant. Qatar has much to answer for, but hypocritical Saudi Arabia is hardly fit for the role of inquisitor-in-chief.