From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Wed Jul 09 2008 - 09:37:06 EDT
Published Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Qatar, Playing All Sides, Is a Nonstop Mediator ROBERT F. WORTH
DOHA, Qatar — In the past month, after Qatari diplomats brokered a landmark
peace deal for Lebanon in talks here, this tiny emirate on the Persian Gulf
has enjoyed a brief moment of giddy celebrity.
Editorialists praised the Qatari emir as a modern-day Metternich. Huge
billboards went up on the road to the Beirut airport, proclaiming, "We all
say: Thank you Qatar." An ice cream shop in downtown Beirut put out a sign
offering a Doha Agreement Cone.
But the Qataris did not linger over their diplomatic triumph. They were too
busy trying to solve every other conflict in the Middle East.
In the past year alone, the Qatari foreign minister, Hamad bin Jassim bin
Jaber Al Thani (widely known as H.B.J.), has flown his jet — repeatedly —
everywhere from Morocco to Libya to Yemen, using charm, guile and large
amounts of money to mediate disputes, with varying success.
This work has not always earned him gratitude. In an increasingly divided
Arab world, the Qataris have fashioned a reputation for themselves as
independent-minded arbitrators who will cozy up to anyone — Iran, Israel,
Chechen separatists — in pursuit of leverage at the bargaining table.
"We don't have an agenda, and we don't keep all our eggs in one basket,"
said Hassan al-Ansari, the director of gulf studies at Qatar University.
That is putting it mildly. Qatar has close ties with Iran, yet it also is
host to one of the world's biggest American air bases. It is home both to
Israeli officials and to hard-line Islamists who advocate Israel's
destruction; to Al Jazeera, the controversial satellite TV station; and (at
least until recently) to Saddam Hussein's widow. Saudi Arabia is a trusted
ally, but so is Saudi Arabia's nemesis Syria, whose president, Bashar
al-Assad, received an Airbus as a personal gift from the Qatari emir this
year.
"They really put all the contradictions of the Middle East in one box," said
Mustafa Alani, a security analyst at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.
The Qataris also back their diplomacy with some eclectic investments. Many
Americans know about the emir's gift of $100 million to help Hurricane
Katrina victims, but Qatar is also building a $1.5 billion oil refinery in
Zimbabwe, a huge residential complex in Sudan and a $350 million tourist
project in Syria.
Some call Qatar's policy deranged. The Qataris prefer to think of it as
useful. Blessed with enormous oil and natural gas reserves, Qatar is
surrounded by large and ambitious neighbors: Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
Diplomacy has become a way for Qatar to protect itself and its riches, by
forming alliances and by trying to stabilize the region.
"The idea is to try to keep everybody happy — or if we can't, to keep
everybody reasonably unhappy," said one former Qatari official, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss foreign
policy. "If that makes the Americans or the Russians a little cross, well,
tough luck."
It does make them cross. American officials have been quietly furious about
Qatar's assistance to Iran and Syria, which includes substantial financial
investments as well as votes against sanctions on Iran during Qatar's tenure
on the United Nations Security Council. The Americans are also angry about
Qatar's hefty financial aid to the militant Palestinian group Hamas after it
won elections in 2006.
"Their relationship with us has been complex, bordering on one of
animosity," said a high-level State Department official, speaking on
condition of anonymity so as not to give offense, adding that Qatar's
support for Hamas had been a "very vexatious problem."
The Russians have complaints too. Qatar provided sanctuary to the Chechen
rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev until two Russian secret agents killed
him in 2004, detonating a bomb in his car as he left a mosque in Doha. The
agents were captured by Qatari authorities and convicted of murder, but
later extradited at Russia's request.
Various Arab governments have also at times lost patience with Qatar, mainly
because Al Jazeera, founded by the Qatari emir, broadcast criticisms of
them. Saudi Arabia broke diplomatic relations with Qatar over this issue in
2002, and they were not restored until 2007, after Qatar promised to rein in
coverage of the kingdom.
Some of Qatar's recent diplomatic adventures — which include negotiations
with rebels in Yemen and Morocco and help in freeing Bulgarian nurses
accused of spreading AIDS in Libya — have backfired. In April, Ethiopia
broke off relations, saying Qatar's support for Eritrea had made it "a major
source of instability in the Horn of Africa."
There is also some anger among Arabs about the warm welcomes received by
Israeli officials in Doha, where Israel also maintains a trade mission —
located, as it happens, not far from a villa owned by Khaled Meshal, the
leader of Hamas.
At times, Qatar's multifaceted approach to the world has bordered on comedy.
In March 2003, Qatar hosted a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic
Conference aimed at forestalling the American invasion of Iraq, even as
preparations for that invasion were taking place nearby at the American
military base. As the final communiqués were being read, military cargo
planes could be heard soaring overhead.
Mr. bin Jaber, the foreign minister, who is also prime minister, has been
coy about the details of Qatar's unusual diplomacy. He has given some
interviews in which he says Qatar wants "good relations with everyone" and
defends his country's relationship with Israel. He declined to be
interviewed for this article.
Qatar's policy was born in 1995, when the current emir, Sheik Hamad bin
Khalifa Al Thani, carried out a bloodless coup against his father, who was
on vacation in Switzerland. The new emir instantly began transforming Qatar
from a sleepy, inward-turned backwater into a dynamic new state. At home, he
began an ambitious remodeling of the emirate's education policies with the
help of his wife, Sheikha Mozah bin Nasser al-Missned. Abroad, the emir and
his cousin, Mr. Jaber, began building a bold new way to engage with the
world while maintaining their country's independence.
In some ways it makes perfect sense. A thumb-shaped peninsula just east of
Saudi Arabia, Qatar is a natural intermediary precisely because it is so
small and harmless, with just 200,000 citizens. (There are about three times
as many foreigners in the country.)
"They are not a threat to anyone, and there is no strategic interest behind
their diplomacy aside from the moral gain," said Mr. Alani, the Dubai
analyst.
Qatar also has an absolute monarchy and virtually no domestic dissent. It is
therefore free, unlike almost every other country in the world, to pursue
iconoclastic policies abroad without worrying about how they play at home.
The fact that Qatar also has the world's highest per capita gross domestic
product, at more than $80,000, probably helps to keep things quiet.
Unlike some other countries in the region, Qatar has had only one terrorist
attack, a suicide bombing in March 2005 in a Doha theater popular with
Westerners. One British citizen was killed and a dozen other people were
wounded.
Despite occasional diplomatic problems and frequent complaints, Qatar's
policy seems to have worked, catapulting the country to new levels of
recognition around the globe.
The Qataris' greatest success by far was the Lebanon agreement in May. Every
major power with an interest in Lebanon had tried to resolve the country's
18-month political crisis. All of them failed, in part because all were seen
as favoring a particular group within Lebanon's political mosaic. Qatar,
with its policy of favoring everyone and no one, was the obvious choice for
a mediator when violence worsened in May.
But Qatar did not succeed by default. Several Lebanese politicians who took
part in the negotiations praised both the Qatari foreign minister and the
emir for their skill.
"They made an interesting and subtle diplomacy," said Walid Jumblatt, the
Lebanese Druse leader.
According to Mr. Jumblatt and others involved in the negotiations, the
Qataris started out by letting the various Lebanese parties vent their
grievances. Days later, when negotiations seemed at an impasse, the Qatari
emir — who had sought and been given permission to speak on behalf of all
the major regional powers with an interest in Lebanon — abruptly changed his
tone.
He gathered the Lebanese leaders and issued a stark warning: This was the
last chance. Everything else had been tried, and if the deal fell through,
they might as well begin a civil war at once, because there was no other
option.
That warning appears to have worked. It has also had a fringe benefit for
the Qataris themselves, whose reputation has grown just a bit brighter.
"In the old days, nobody had really heard of Qatar," said Abdel Aziz
al-Mahmoud, the editor of Al Arab, a newspaper in Doha. "Now, once you say
'I'm from Qatar,' it's, 'Step right this way.' "
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