What is Behind the Diplomatic Demarche of Gulf States and Syria?

Sent to us by the author, Sophie Mangal.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Maldives and Mauritania announced on Monday an extraordinary step of cutting off diplomatic ties with the State of Qatar. In this regard, the command of Saudi-led coalition has already decided to exclude Qatar from the members of the alliance, which is fighting the Hussites now in Yemen.  

Formed after Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, the anti-Qatar coalition intends to act decisively. It is to block land, sea and air links with Doha. The upcoming blockade stimulates the growth of energy prices and jeopardizes the Qatar World Cup in 2022.

Formal accusations

Officially, the countries have substantiated their decision by the serious violations of the authorities in Qatar. Most of them include:

• the destabilization of the situation within the countries of the new anti-Qatar coalition;
• the undermining of the national security of the Arab countries;
• the interference in the internal affairs;
• the division of the society and the spread of chaos;
• the encroachment on the sovereignty and the unity of Arab nation;
• the promotion of the extremist ideology through the media;
• the supporting terrorism and providing financial assistance to Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood;

However, despite all the charges against Qatar, you should try to find out the true reasons of the diplomatic demarche.

Real reasons

Financial Times was the first who started talking about the real reasons. It claims that Qatar paid Al Qaeda about $1 billion to release members of the Gulf state’s royal family who were kidnapped in southern Iraq while on a falconry. It became one of the main reasons to rupture diplomatic relations between the countries.

On the one hand, it seems that you can’t argue with that logic. Qatar took the most direct part in financing and supporting various radical jihadist groups throughout the Middle East and North Africa. A lot of evidence repeatedly appeared proving close links between Qatar and representatives of international terrorist organizations. But this is only part of the truth which the major media considered it necessary to focus attention on.

This accusation may be completely correct, if only we forget the role of the United States and other countries of the Persian Gulf in supporting the same organizations. The thing is that the United States and Saudi Arabia decided to radically change their policy towards ISIS and focus on its elimination. So, the dirty hands of ‘terrorism fighters’ must be laundered before the future triumph over jihadists. In accordance with Saudi Arabia, the U.S. urgently was seeking someone to be accused of what IS had done in the Middle East.

It’s a package deal for Saudi Arabia not to be the main accomplice of terrorism because of its status. Moreover, the Saudis apparently agreed with Trump that the former claims would be forgotten in exchange of huge flows of Saudi money into the U.S. military-industrial complex (Defense contracts worth $110 billion were signed). Thus, Qatar suddenly turned into an official sponsor of Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Perhaps the real reasons are related to the exacerbation of conflict in Yemen. In favor of this version the U.S. postpones Raqqa’s assault together with the Syrian Kurds. It can even be assumed that Trump in Riyadh challenged Tehran by providing the coalition with an unprecedented amount of weapons. And now the situation in the region can only aggravate the tension, which could have an impact on further developments and first of all in Syria and Yemen. The crisis in relations may well shift the confrontation. It would not be surprising if the terrorists in Syria and Iraq also begin an open battle between themselves.

Effect

A knock-on effect has come into force. A number of states decided to take advantage of the situation. Egypt, for example, has blamed Qatar for the support of the Muslim Brotherhood. The shooting of the bus with children in Egypt, apparently, provided the tipping point to blame Qatar for everything. Bahrain accused Qatar of supporting the Shiites and of close ties with Iran.

I wish I couldn’t forget the role of other master minders of the Arab Spring. It’s ridiculous, but Saudi Arabia and Qatar supplied militants in Syria and threatened by joint intervention in Syria side by side just a year ago. The founder and the leader of Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, did come from the family of the Saudi nobility. It turns out that Riyadh threatened Assad to invade his country together with the main sponsor of IS! Moreover, Qatar, as the ‘main sponsor of terrorists’ formally even participated in the operations against ISIS. How is it possible I would like to ask?

Probably, this state of affairs is a consequence of the serious strategic changes in the Middle East that occurred after the active accession of Assad’s allies to the Syrian war. The old strategies for the region have collapsed; the plans of Washington, Ankara and Riyadh have gone to pieces, so now new strategies are needed that are adapted to the new reality. Qatar, apparently, does not fit into these plans yet, and they decided to make the country at least a regional outcast. However, it is not worth much regretting this state, given its role in the destruction of Libya and Syria. It remains only to find out whether Qatar will get off with ‘public reprimand’ or he will face a more severe punishment for the sins of everyone else.