Qatar’s maverick days near their end

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Visiting Qatar not long ago, it would have been hard to imagine the tiny peninsula becoming the pariah of the Middle East. But today it seems to be just that.

For several days now, the Gulf country has been banned from its neighbors’ air, land or seas, leaving it with no open land border and just a tiny corridor for air and sea traffic. Several shipping companies have halted service to Doha’s ports. Some residents were so panicked in the first hours of the diplomatic crisis that they rushed to grocery stores to stock up on food and supplies.

This sort of isolation is anathema to the strange universe of rebel politics that has grown up in its hotels, malls, think tanks and conference centers in recent years. Being in Doha was like stumbling into a bazaar of regional conflict. There were the Syrians, who bounced between hotels and newly constructed villas; the Libyans, who held court at the Four Seasons; the Afghan Taliban representatives, who liked to roam around upscale shopping centers on the weekend.

At the hotel where I frequently stayed — the cheapest one in the central West Bay district because it didn’t serve alcohol — the mezzanine level hosted an office for Darfuri rebels. The door was clearly marked, lest anyone mistake it for the gym, which was right beside it.

Qatar was a place where everyone could — and was encouraged to — meet. By mishap alone in my half decade reporting from Qatar, I stumbled into Hamas chief Khaled Mishaal, Tunisian Islamist leader Rached Ghannouchi, now-deceased Sudanese opposition figure Hassan Al-Turabi, and numerous Syrian rebel chiefs at a gaggle of four and five-star hotels. I also met dozens of middlemen who had a variety of gigs and rackets backed by varying levels of official support.

A general view shows boats sitting in the port along the corniche in Doha | STR/AFP via Getty images

This was what Qatar did. A tiny gas-rich state long overshadowed by Saudi Arabia, the country consolidated power by serving as the region’s contrarian. In Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Manama, stability is the mantra. In Doha, they preached the gospel of change. As a monarchy, Qatar had no problem with authoritarians if they were allied. But after the Arab Spring, the country’s leaders said: Enough with the tyrants in Syria, Libya, and Egypt! Taking a moral stand, for a while at least, could sometimes be played to their advantage.

Patron of lost causes

Staking out such a stance required tactical backing, of course. Qatar became home to the largest U.S. air base in the region in 2003, even as it aligned itself with Muslim Brotherhood affiliates across the globe. The latter was an inspired match. Home to a quarter of a million Qatari nationals, the country had the money but not the manpower to exert influence. Meanwhile, in many countries in the region, the Brotherhood was the best organized nongovernmental entity, with plenty of people but no cash.

Qatar became the patron of lost causes throughout the Middle East: rebel group Ahrar al-Sham in Syria, Islamist insurgents in Libya, the Brotherhood in Egypt. Doha didn’t simply mail certified checks to each of these organizations. Instead, it picked out middlemen — “Friends of Qatar,” as I call them — for each cause and funneled support through their operations. In the kindest reading, it was messy, corrupt and replete with unintended consequences. To the country’s critics, it was reckless and intolerable.

What its neighbors want is an end to its one true source of political power: its ability to annoy.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain ran out of patience in 2014. All three countries pulled their ambassadors from Doha and pushed Qatar to sign an agreement promising to comply with regional norms. Qatar agreed to stop some of its more irritating activities, shipped Egyptian fugitives to Turkey and scaled back support to groups in Libya. But after several weeks, things went back to normal.

Perhaps the status quo could have held if it wasn’t for U.S. President Donald Trump — and a series of bizarre cyber provocations.

Power shift

Visiting Saudi Arabia last month in his first trip overseas, Trump anointed Riyadh as the center of the Middle East and America’s top ally. The move has visibly shifted the balance of power in the Gulf. The new U.S. administration is anti-Iran, anti-Islamist and anti-revolutionary — three strikes against Doha.

Then, late last month, Qatar’s official news agency published comments attributed to the country’s emir that its neighbors found insulting. Doha claimed the agency had been hacked, but media in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the region reported the statements anyway. As accusations flew back and forth, Gulf newspapers and cable channels went into overdrive. In the days that followed, the Bahraini foreign minister’s Twitter page was apparently hacked, and the emails of the UAE’s ambassador to Washington were leaked to U.S. media.

That’s when Qatar’s neighbors turned up the pressure — and Trump offered his approval.

“During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar — look!” Trump tweeted on Tuesday, appearing to back Qatar’s isolation. He continued: “So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding … extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!”

Now so thoroughly isolated, it’s hard to see how Doha doesn’t capitulate.

U.S. President Donald Trump joins dancers with swords at a welcome ceremony ahead of a banquet at the Murabba Palace in Riyadh | Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

What its neighbors want is an end to its one true source of political power: its ability to annoy. The UAE’s foreign ministry summed up some of the specifics: Qatar must reign in its media empire, eject regional fugitives, disallow clerics from defaming other Gulf states, and cut support to the Muslim Brotherhood. In other words, they want Qatar to behave a lot more like the rest of the Gulf.

Middle East maverick

If Qatar complies, the regional implications will be large. Saudi Arabia’s mantle as leader of the Arab and Sunni Muslim world will be, at least temporarily, secure. The Muslim Brotherhood — including its affiliates in Egypt — Palestine’s Hamas, and Tunisia’s Ennahda will lose a donor, a safe haven, and a gaggle of media ready to come to its defense. The Gulf will have one fewer line of communication with Iran, with whom Qatar shares a natural gas field and has pragmatically maintained decent if distrusting ties.

Tensions between Riyadh and Tehran have been rising since the Arab Spring, when the two capitals chose opposing sides in the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain. Sunni Muslims are outraged by Iran’s role in helping slaughter hundreds of thousands of civilians in Syria. And after Wednesday’s terrorist attack in Tehran — which Iran’s Revolutionary Guards provocatively blamed on Saudi Arabia — regional animosity is growing.

Right or wrong, Qatar believes in what it’s doing. So do its neighbors.

Doha will fight to remain the maverick, as it always does. Throughout my six years of reporting in the Gulf, I have always been struck — and at times alarmed — by the earnestness of Qatari foreign policy. The country’s leaders may understand the power of being a thorn in other countries’ side, but they also seem to believe in the people and causes they support and fund.

Shuttering its media empire, for example, wouldn’t just mean slashing budgets and jobs; it would mean abandoning allies who have been loyal for years and could face prosecution and persecution if they are returned home.

Right or wrong, Qatar believes in what it’s doing. So do its neighbors.

Elizabeth Dickinson is a Gulf-based journalist for Deca. She tweets at @dickinsonbeth.