Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Qatar

  • The Weapons of Saudi’s Siege on Qatar

    Doha Qatar
    Skyline of Doha, Qatar (Unsplash/Oleg Illarionov)

    Anyone who’s ever worked in the Gulf isn’t shocked that Qatar missed a deadline. Badiin, badiin, “later, later,” in the local parlance, as yet another meeting fails to happen.

    In light of that, we shouldn’t be so surprised that the Qatar’s been given something of an extension. Reuters reports:

    Four Arab states refrained on Wednesday from slapping further sanctions on Qatar but voiced disappointment at its “negative” response to their demands and said their boycott of the tiny Gulf nation would continue.

    Qatar earlier in the day accused Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt of “clear aggression” and said the accusations cited when they severed ties a month ago “were clearly designed to create anti-Qatar sentiment in the West”.

    Western media is conflict-driven and narrative-obsessed: the advent of 24/7 cable news in the 1980s transformed news from the highlights-heavy, factually-driven 5 o’clock stories to the ever-in-crisis outrage industrial complex.

    That’s the result of a free market, free speech and cultural shifts that value action over substance.

    Very little of that translates to the Arabian Gulf, where markets are only free in designated zones and where free speech applies only to those at the very, very top.

    Thus the notion that missing the deadline was a disaster for Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi is hype. Anti-Saudi conspiracy theorists are grasping at what straws they can if they add up to a haystack of Saudi humiliation.

    Alas, all of that misreads the situation and the Gulf in general. This is a soft-power war: Saudi Arabia and its UAE allies will not risk a military invasion of a country with a United States base inside it. They don’t have to either. For the kingdom and its Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) lackeys to call it a victory, they need only to wait. (more…)

  • Trump Sells Qatar Warplanes After Accusing It of Funding Terrorists

    The American Defense Department has announced it selling $12 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets to Qatar, the same Persian Gulf country President Donald Trump recently accused of sponsoring terrorists.

    The timing is unlikely to be deliberate. Weapons deals usually take months or even years to negotiate. This one may have been in the works before Trump even became president.

    But the Pentagon could surely have delayed the announcement if it worried about sending mixed signals?

    Only two weeks ago, Trump claimed responsibility for the diplomatic isolation of Qatar after Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates broke off ties.

    “The time had come to call on Qatar to end its funding” of extremists, he said.

    Yet he is selling warplanes to the same country. (more…)

  • France Likely to Dial Down Relations with Qatar After Election

    The cozy relationship enjoyed between France and Qatar may come to an end after the election on Sunday. Both Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen have bashed the Persian Gulf state on the campaign trail.

    “I will put an end to the agreements that favor Qatar in France,” Macron, the frontrunner, said last month. “I think there was a lot of complacencies, during Nicolas Sarkozy’s five-year term in particular.”

    Sarkozy, a conservative, intensified cooperation with Qatar. His left-wing successor, François Hollande, did not reverse the policy.

    Macron, a former economy minister under Hollande, has pledged to demand that Western allies in the Middle East, like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, show a “new transparency as to their role in financing or other actions regarding terrorist groups that are our enemies.” (more…)

  • Arab Gulf States Will Have to Let in Syrian Refugees

    Dubai United Arab Emirates
    Dubai at night (Unsplash/Piotr Chrobot)

    As the European migrant crisis is giving way to unprecedented humanitarian efforts from first Germany and now the Vatican, more than a few analysts have noted that for all Europe’s generosity, only a few Arab states have opened their doors to the masses fleeing war in Iraq and Syria.

    That’s curious when one considers that the ultra-rich Gulf Cooperation Council states are far closer than Europe and the journey there involves no dangerous seafaring. Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all have considerable oil and gas reserves and their citizens are much richer than those of other Arab states. Yet GCC governments have stayed mum even as the #ArabConscience has begun trending regionally. Why? (more…)

  • Qatari Emir Expands Regional Influence With Gaza Visit

    The emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, made history on Monday by becoming the first head of state to visit the Gaza Strip since Hamas took control of the coastal territory in 2007.

    For the past five years, Gaza has been a virtual no man’s land in the eyes of much of the world, including some of the very same Arab states that consider the cause of Palestinian freedom a moral one of their own. The Qatari leader has broken that impasse to the delight of senior Hamas officials and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who are struggling to make do in any area with no natural resources and decrepit public infrastructure.

    Before Sheikh Hamad was scheduled to enter the strip, officials in the Hamas movement made sure that the visit would be a memorable one. Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ prime minister, personally greeted the emir as he crossed into Gaza from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The monarch received a red carpet welcome with an honor guard at his side. Qatari flags were slapped to road signs, electrical cables, telephone polls and along the territory’s major roads to show just how much the sheikh’s trip was appreciated among the Palestinian public.

    The official purpose of Sheikh Hamad’s foray into Gaza was to inaugurate $400 million dollars worth of Qatari donations to improve the territory’s dismal economic situation. The money will reportedly be used to build a housing complex that will consist of some 1,000 apartments, improve upon two major highways that are riddled with potholes, break ground on a new medical facility and to refurbish schools that have been damaged.

    The visit is also symptomatic of what Qatar, a small but wealthy country with rich natural resource potential, has become: a powerful and influential player in the diplomatic world. (more…)