Qatar Scales Back Role in Middle East Conflicts
By/Yaroslav Trofimov/Wall Street Journal
Dec. 30, 2014
DOHA, Qatar—This tiny emirate made plenty of foes in recent years by intervening in an array of regional conflicts. Now, faced with some hefty political costs, it is moderating its big-power ambitions.
From mediating in Lebanon and Sudan to helping rebels in Libya and Syria and backing the Palestinian group Hamas, Qatar has been involved in virtually every Middle Eastern flash point. But, under pressure from bigger neighbors Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, it has moved in recent weeks to distance itself from its traditional posture of championing Islamist movements—particularly the Muslim Brotherhood—in Egypt and elsewhere.
To what extent Qatar—with fewer citizens than Malta—will retract into a more limited role will become clear in coming months. But diplomats and analysts in the Qatari capital of Doha agree that the emirate will now focus more on domestic priorities.
“The Qataris were a little bit shaken about how much blowback they have had,” said Abdullah Baabood, director of the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University. “The recent events show they have overstretched themselves. They will now pick their battles and focus on what serves best their strategic interests.”
Despite its foreign-policy leanings, Qatar itself is no Islamist theocracy. Unlike in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, alcohol is legal here and bikini-clad tourists sip martinis in Doha’s beachfront resorts.
The country began feeling the costs of its foreign entanglements when angry Saudi Arabia, U.A.E. and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Doha in March. After their threats to boycott a summit of Gulf monarchies in Doha this month, Qatar revised its stance on the critical point of disagreement—how to treat the Muslim Brotherhood and the current Egyptian leadership, which ousted the Islamist group from power last year.
Having expelled several Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders ahead of the summit, Qatar sent a senior envoy to Egypt on Dec. 20 to seek a rapprochement with President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi.
Two days later, Qatar shut down the Egyptian channel of its Al Jazeera TV network, an outlet for the Brotherhood and other opponents of Egypt’s current leadership.
“The security of Egypt is important for the security of Qatar,” Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani said.
Qatar, which by some estimates enjoys the planet’s highest per capita income thanks to natural-gas resources, burst onto the world stage under the previous emir, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. The restless foreign and prime minister at the time, Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, widely known as HBJ, jetted around the Middle East trying to broker deals in its many conflicts.
When the Arab Spring began in 2011, Qatar eagerly embraced the change. Betting that Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood represented the future, Doha actively backed them all over the Middle East—even as Qatari officials publicly denied playing favorites. This was a critical difference from Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., which consider the Brotherhood an existential threat.
“Qataris definitely think they were on the right side of history, supporting the peoples of the Arab world,” said Andreas Krieg, an expert at King’s College London who is advising the Qatari armed forces.
In Libya, portraits of the Qatari emir replaced those of Moammar Gadhafi in some hotel lobbies in 2011, an acknowledgment of the critical role that Doha played in arming and funding the rebellion that eventually toppled the regime there. In Egypt, Qatar pumped billions of dollars to help the government of President Mohammed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader who won the country’s first democratic presidential elections in 2012.
And in Syria, Qatar feuded with the Saudis over control of the opposition, funding some Islamist rebel groups that eventually joined the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front or the extremist group Islamic State.
Despite its rhetoric in favor of democratic change in the region, the absolute monarchy has remained just as repressive as its neighbors, said Najeeb al Nuaimi, the country’s former justice minister who is now a prominent human-rights lawyer.
“It is a police state. There is no democracy in Qatar. If you open your mouth, they will even strip you of your passport,” he said. “We supported directly all the uprisings, with violence, with guns—but only the Brotherhood, not the liberals.”
That policy met the test of reality immediately after the current emir assumed power in June 2013, succeeding his father and sidelining HBJ, a distant relation.
A week later in Egypt, Gen. Sisi—military chief at the time—ousted President Morsi in a military coup. Mr. Morsi has since been charged with spying for Qatar, among other things. With the help of the Saudis and Emiratis, Gen. Sisi then began a drive to wipe out the Brotherhood.
Qatar’s bid to reconcile with Cairo now leaves Turkey as the only regional country still challenging President Sisi’s legitimacy.
In Libya, the international community rallied behind the administration based in the eastern city of Tobruk that, with Egyptian and Emirati military involvement, is advancing against the coalition of Islamists long backed by Qatar.
“Due to international pressures, Qatar’s support for the Islamists is waning,” said Karim Mezran, a Libya expert at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington.
In Syria, Qatar has moved away from its clients and joined the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State—though, unlike the Saudis and Emiratis, it is not flying any bombing missions there.
Following the rise of Islamic State, growing international concern about some of Qatar’s less savory connections even threatened to endanger Doha’s plan to hold the soccer World Cup in 2022.
Suddenly isolated, Doha became increasingly unable to resist Saudi and Emirati demands to fall in line—with this month’s summit in Doha formally marking its return to the fold.
“Their biggest weakness is the gap between their ambitions and their capabilities,” said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center think tank. “They aspire to play in the big leagues—but the big-leaguers often put them at the bottom of the tables.”
**Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
