How could Qatar’s foreign policy best be defined during the Arab
Spring? In the midst of the conflict between Gaddafi’s forces and
the rebels in the Libyan civil war, Qatar was
hailed by Barack Obama in April for building a broad coalition
of international support for the NATO campaign against Gaddafi.
Obama also hailed the emir of Qatar for supposedly being a
pragmatic mediator and negotiator in the wider region.
Indeed,
as the Guardian puts it, the country has a reputation
for “a cautious but active foreign policy.” Other analysts have
seen Qatar as a nation playing both sides in the Middle Eastern
Cold War between the Saudi-led “status-quo bloc” and the
Iranian-led “resistance” bloc.
For example, although Qatar has maintained good economic
and diplomatic ties with Tehran, it has also hosted American
military bases and CENTCOM, besides having limited trade relations
with Israel.
However, I prefer to advance the following thesis: Qatar’s
foreign policy at present is based on the principle of promoting
Sunni interests, and where possible, the interests of Sunni
Islamists.
For instance, recently the country has come under
criticism from some Western diplomats and the National Transitional
Council (NTC) for its role in Libya.
As the Wall Street Journal notes, Qatari aid has
circumvented the NTC, and has been provided to independent rebel
militias dominated by Islamist commanders.
Two individuals particularly favored by Qatar are the
Islamist leader of the Tripoli Military Council- Abdul-Aziz Belhaj,
who is generally not trusted by rebels in and around Misrata, and
Sheikh Ali Sallabi, a Libyan cleric currently living in Qatar’s
capital and with close ties to Belhaj. Tensions have emerged
between Sallabi and Mahmoud Jabril, the interim prime minister for
the NTC described as a “tyrant in waiting” and part of a group of
“extreme secularists” by Sallabi.
Meanwhile, when it came to the Syrian uprising, in which
the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood could well be playing a
prominent role in the opposition to the Alawite-dominated
government, Qatar quickly transformed from an ally into a harsh
critic of Assad’s regime. Al-Jazeera’s Arabic channel rapidly
expanded its coverage of protests in Syria, and Yousef
al-Qaradhawi, host of al-Jazeera’s “Shari’a and Life” show, called
for the Baathist regime to be removed from power.
The cleric
criticized Assad as someone “held prisoner by his entourage and
the [Alawite] sect.” Al-Jazeera, it should be noted, is owned by a
member of the Qatari ruling dynasty, and its Arabic channel is
certainly aligned with Qatar’s foreign policy agenda, intended for
Middle Eastern audiences and very different from the English
version that is aimed at international viewers outside the
region.
The latter’s remarks particularly annoyed the Syrian
government, leading to a suspension of ties between Syria and Qatar
as Assad reportedly told the Qatari emir’s emissary that
al-Qaradhawi must apologize for his statements if there are going
to be friendly relations again.
And so it is that al-Jazeera’s Arabic channel has been
more than happy to provide coverage of demonstrations in Egypt,
Tunisia, and Yemen, all of which are places where Sunni Islamists
can be empowered (the Muslim Brotherhood, the Ennahda party, and
the Islah party respectively). Yet al-Jazeera’s Arabic channel
generally ignores the unrest in Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia,
both with Shi’a majorities protesting against Sunni
rule.
Bahrain is a country marked by Sunni minority rule at the
cost of significant sectarian discrimination against the Shi’a
majority. In fact, Qatar has even aided Saudi Arabia and the Gulf
Cooperation Council in sending troops to assist the regime in
quelling the protests.
As for eastern Saudi Arabia, a perusal of al-Jazeera’s Arabic news
site reveals no coverage of protests there. As Asad Abu Khalil
of “The Angry Arab News Service”
correctly notes (for once), “to verify what is going on in
Saudi Arabia, al-Jazeera asked its famous witness, Abu Muhammad in
Idlib, if he saw protests from his window. Abu Muhammad said that
he couldn’t see anything and al-Jazeera accordingly reported that
all is well in the kingdom.”
Finally, in keeping with Qatar’s warm ties with Turkey
under the Islamist AKP, al-Jazeera’s Arabic channel has tended to
provide uncritical coverage of the prime minister
Erdoğan’s efforts to bolster his image as a
friend and helping hand for the Arab world, while not mentioning
the water crises Turkey’s dam projects in Anatolia have helped to
trigger in Iraq and Syria. To be sure, the policy predates the AKP
government’s accession to power in 2002, but has only expanded and
accelerated under Erdoğan.
Unfortunately, there has been a far too widespread
tendency, both in the media and in policy circles, to see Qatar
either as a moderate Western ally in the ongoing unrest as part of
the Arab Spring, or somehow as an advocate for liberal democracy
and reform in the Middle East and North Africa. Rather, its true
Sunni sectarian and pro-Islamist agenda needs to be
recognized.
