Friended: Qatar’s perplexing geostrategy.
On a Tuesday morning in September, three buses full of Libyan tribesmen milled around the gilded lobby of the Ritz Carlton hotel in Doha, the shimmering glass capital of Qatar. The tribesmen were dressed in a mixture of suits and ties and sweeping white robes, and they had come to personally thank the emir for helping them to overthrow Muammar Qaddafi. Yusef Mansoori, a member of the delegation, told me earnestly, “We would like to thank him very, very much for everything he has done for us.”
Certainly, the Libyans had plenty to be grateful for. Qatar was the first Arab state to recognize the National Transitional Council as the country’s legitimate government. It also assisted the rebels by marketing Libyan oil, and hosting and underwriting their Radio Free Europe-style TV station. What’s more, Qatar sent a steady supply of aid to anti-Qaddafi forces, including six Mirage fighter jets, an array of military vehicles, fuel, ammunition, weapons, hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, and a team of Western-trained special forces, who taught the rebel fighters how to shoot—and, according to The Guardian, fought beside them in Tripoli in August.
Had Libya’s revolt stalled, had Qaddafi hung onto power, or had Arab public opinion turned on the rebels, this could have turned out very badly for Qatar. Instead, the tiny Gulf state was praised all over the world. In Libya itself, the Qatari flag briefly flew over Qaddafi’s abandoned compound, and framed portraits of the emir and the crown prince replaced those of the former dictator in a Misrata hotel. Libyans even re-named a square in the center of Tripoli after their newfound ally. The image couldn’t have been clearer: Qatar was on the side of the liberators.
It isn’t just Libya where Qatar has recently sided with rebels. The country also made headlines when it called for Yemeni President Ali Abdulla Saleh to step down in April, and when it became the first Gulf nation to close its embassy in Syria in July. Needless to say, none of this is exactly conventional behavior for an autocratic hereditary monarchy that regularly receives critical marks from human rights groups. How did Qatar end up in this incongruous foreign policy role?