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Guest Post: Qatar's Jihad
Authored by Brahma Chellaney via Stagecraft and Statecraft,
Qatar may be tiny, but it is having a major impact across the Arab world. By propping up violent jihadists in the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond, while supporting the United States in its fight against them, this gas-rich speck of a country – the world’s wealthiest in per capita terms – has transformed itself from a regional gadfly into an international rogue elephant.
Using its vast resources, and driven by unbridled ambition, Qatar has emerged as a hub for radical Islamist movements. The massive, chandeliered Grand Mosque in Doha – Qatar’s opulent capital – is a rallying point for militants heading to wage jihad in places as diverse as Yemen, Tunisia, and Syria. As a result, Qatar now rivals Saudi Arabia – another Wahhabi state with enormous resource wealth – in exporting Islamist extremism.
But there are important differences between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Qatar’s Wahhabism is less severe than Saudi Arabia’s; for example, Qatari women are allowed to drive and to travel alone. In Qatar, there is no religious police enforcing morality, even if Qatari clerics openly raise funds for militant causes overseas.
Given this, it is perhaps unsurprising that, whereas Saudi Arabia’s sclerotic leadership pursues reactionary policies rooted in a puritanical understanding of Islam, Qatar’s younger royals have adopted a forward-thinking approach. Qatar is the home of the Al Jazeera satellite television channel and Education City, a district outside of Doha that accommodates schools, universities, and research centers.
Similar inconsistencies are reflected in Qatar’s foreign policy. Indeed, the country’s relationship with the United States directly contradicts its links with radical Islamist movements.
Qatar hosts Al Udeid air base – with its 8,000 American military personnel and 120 aircraft, including supertankers for in-flight refueling – from which the US directs its current airstrikes in Syria and Iraq. Camp As-Sayliyah – another facility for which Qatar charges no rent – serves as the US Central Command’s forward headquarters. In July, Qatar agreed to purchase $11 billion worth of US arms.
Moreover, Qatar has used its leverage over the Islamists that it funds to help secure the release of Western hostages. And it hosted secret talks between the US and the Pakistan-backed Afghan Taliban. To facilitate the negotiations, Qatar provided a home, with US support, to the Taliban’s de facto diplomatic mission – and to the five Afghan Taliban leaders released earlier this year from US detention at Guantánamo Bay.
In other words, Qatar is an important US ally, a supplier of weapons and funds to Islamists, and a peace broker all at the same time. Add to that its position as the world’s largest supplier of liquefied natural gas and the holder of one of its largest sovereign-wealth funds, and it becomes clear that Qatar has plenty of room to maneuver – as well as considerable international clout. Germany’s government found that out when it was forced to retract its development minister’s statement that Qatar played a central role in arming and financing the Islamic State.
Qatar’s growing influence has important implications for the balance of power in the Arab World, especially with regard to the country’s rivalry with Saudi Arabia. This competitive dynamic, which surfaced only recently, represents a shift from a long history of working in tandem to export Islamist extremism.
Both Qatar and Saudi Arabia generously supplied weapons and funds to Sunni extremists in Syria, opening the door for the emergence of the Islamic State. Both have bolstered the Afghan Taliban. And both contributed to Libya’s transformation into a failed state by aiding Islamist militias. During the 2011 NATO campaign to overthrow Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, Qatar even deployed ground troops covertly inside Libya.
Today, however, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are on opposite sides. Qatar, along with Turkey, backs grassroots Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots in Gaza, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq, and the Levant. That pits it against Saudi Arabia and countries like the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Jordan, whose rulers view such movements as an existential threat, with some, including the House of Saud, investing in propping up autocratic regimes like their own.
In this sense, Qatar’s tack has produced a rare schism within the Gulf Cooperation Council, whose members collectively possess nearly half of the world’s oil reserves. The proxy competition among rival monarchies, which led some of them to withdraw their ambassadors from Qatar in March, is intensifying violence and instability throughout the region. For example, the UAE, with Egyptian assistance, secretly carried out airstrikes in August to stop Qatari-aided Islamist militias from gaining control of the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
Qatar’s leaders are willing to challenge their neighbors for a simple reason: They believe that the grassroots Islamist movements they support – which, in their view, represent majority political aspirations – eventually will win. Anticipating that such groups will increasingly shape Arab politics, displacing strongman regimes, Qatar has set out to empower them.
In doing so, Qatar is destabilizing several countries and threatening the security of secular democracies far beyond the region. For the sake of regional and international security, this elephant must be tamed.
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One Russian Tsar Bomba would solve this little problem, once and for all.
Imagine if the Baptists owned 50% of the world's oil, still be burning witches at the stake
Not a bad analogy, but they weren't Baptists.
That's more a Southern thang.
The Qatari autocratic Kings assume their own heads will be spared in this revolutionary orgy of jihadist head rolling?? Wow, they are dumb fucks.
Yes; they are. That's the best part of this whole thing; they're all stupid as rocks.
Al Jazeera is owned by their Royal Family as well, the Tyler's forgot to point this out
Edit
I'm wrong they did (well sort of) and I need to learn how to absorb what I read
In most parts of the world, island nations are pretty cool places to hang out and the culture is great. carribean, Pacific Islands. Japan and Taiwan have more open sex than other places and I think its an island culture thing too.
This is the Middle Easts Island culture. It says alot about the region.
if this is(whatever) thing does win over the majority of the region Qatar better look out. what makes them think the very ones they supported won't view them as a juicy fruit to pick and devour? the first thing they organized in iraq was to steal their oil and their money. and those guys are broke compared to Qatar.
USA military in the country; reading difficulty?
"And your...TWIN SISTER TOO! Aha! Your treachery is now complete young Skywalker! The Emperor has forseen this as well!"
They are a distant second to the CIA.
The Elders of Jihad, aloooo akbar!...lol.
A little something to cleanse the palate ;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl2oFbe-jTY
fUCK YOU,YOU ARSEHOLE.cONSTANTLY THREADJACKING.wHERE ARE YOU ,IN iSRAHOLE OR LA(lOWER ALABAMA)?
you sound upset...
Dear dickless wonder Iwanttoknow,
If you would have followed the link you would have found it is very much germane to the subject of this thread.
With zero respect,
nmewn
P.S. Living in a Los Angeles slum doesn't give one status or hope, I'm not talking about Germany and not realizing your cap key is on before trying to insult me has defined your own ignorance in ways I never could, so thanks.
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So lets go ahead and do this, dickless wonder.
Being as how you "want to know"...lol...how is it that a Chechen winds up dead as a wedge outside Alleppo? Is this a vast joooish conspiracy to bring down Assad and replace him with a caliphate which is even deadlier and inhumane than Assad?
Makes perfect sense if you're a retard.
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None of my three (so far) junkers want to take up your fallen banner? Are you all cowards or just stooopid living in an "LA" slum? ;-)
+1
you have a way with words, brother..
and i popped some popcorn to watch the fights...but no one showed...
Dude; whatever the fuck your problem is, I don't really need, or want, to know about it. How about if you just STFU.
+1
Bout time Putin and China give nukes to Iran and Syria.
Putin even backed out of his agreement to sell Russia's advanced anti aircraft missiles to Iran and Syria. Either Putin sees some benefit to Russia from the ongoing killing in Syria and soon to be Iran or he is just afraid of the response by the west.
If there's an Education City, you can bet yer ass there's a Re-Education City. Hell, they might both be the same place.
"Qatar’s growing influence has important implications for the balance of power in the Arab World,.."
Alright, so must must almost be time to find ......(fill in the dots US) and bomb them.
Thoughtful piece. Probably a lot of truth in it.
So when will ZH publish something about what Israel's strategy is, in the Middle East?
Oh, right.
If Israel is still with Saudi Arabia, then would they be opposed to what Qatar is doing? Israel can benefit from chaos in some places and suffer from it in other circumstances. I can see why they opposed Obama's destablilization of Egypt via the Muslim Brotherhood while at the same time supporting chaos in Syria. At this point there are just too many agendas in the region for a real trend to be known. That, and we have no real clue what transpires at the power meetings.
very confusing; amazing that they can remember who they're supposed to be slaughtering this week.
Qatar's LNG vs. Saudi Arabia's crude oil...interesting conundrum for energy-starved Western nations.
http://olduvai.ca
The Qatari pols and elites know that when the petrodollar goes, their wealth goes. When the petrodollar goes, the price of oil and gas will fall and they will have much less income. When the petrodollar goes they will need to at least be able to sell oil and gas to Europe, as the DC US will be toast. They know that they need to be allied to Europe, Greater Israel, and whatever fiat the Rothschild banksters come up with next.
The Qataris are reading the writing on the wall, we need to read it as well.
An American, not US subject.
Greater Israel's use of the DC US puts a new meaning to "throw away society."
Here we go:
http://www.france24.com/en/20141012-iraq-ground-role-likely-us-military-...
And here's the Islamic State aligned group parading somewhere in Libya, uploaded today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQP2LPwbszs
Good writeup, no secrets revealed but good analysis.
I'd say there are two interesting points, first that in the better traditions of an Arab trader Qatar has sought to be on all sides, and that's just where they are. The other point is that this has somehow put them at cross-purposes with the Sauds, who have been doing the same thing for the most part, in fact more actively supporting jihad for many decades. Now the Sauds are having some new thoughts, as they teeter on the edge of bankruptcy. It probably serves US interests and world peace to have this discomfort between Arab neighbors, and having neighbors hate and fear each other is another fine old Arab tradition so nobody should be too surprised. Really it's the Sauds who are the surprise here, though I'm not really expecting much who knows, they say Allah is merciful.
As for what Israel's strategy is, it's just to survive. Right now Israel has an unprecedented (if still uncomfortable) arrangement with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. I'm sure all parties in the area are watching to see just how that works out.
And of course, next door looms Iran, the Joker in the deck asking everyone, "Why so serious?"
The article has so many mistaken generalizations about who supports what and why.
The rogue "elephant" in the room
is NOT that "speck of a country", Qatar.
Why O why is it so hard for some to understand that US foreign policy
supports its so-called allies, partners, adversaries, enemies in some matters,
and opposes its so-called allies, partners, adversaries, enemies in other matters,
but ALWAYS with an eye to benefit the ruling .001% who set the US policies?
Actually, I'm going to have to diagree with that. I think the CIA likes to play world-chess-position dominance; I don't think it will actually benefit any .001% of anything. The arm chair generals want to be completely in charge of the world and hence all the shit aimed at Russia, which seems to them like some kind of threat. I doubt very much if it is. Basically, I think these planners are kind of insane.
Qatar’s leaders are willing to challenge their neighbors for a simple reason: They believe that the grassroots Islamist movements they support – which, in their view, represent majority political aspirations – eventually will win. Anticipating that such groups will increasingly shape Arab politics, displacing strongman regimes, Qatar has set out to empower them.
Gee, who says the western power elite did not see the same thing at different stages over a 100 yr period...Remember where chess was invented..."war is an extension of politics" :Clausewitz
Cheers
Qatar is simply paying out Protection Money for the Royal Family.
If the ISIS movement can threaten Baghdad, how hard would it be to just take control of Qatar? Total population is about 2,000,000. Is that military beter than the one in Iraq? If the family pays out enough to the jihadi groups the family can delay the test for a while.
Makes more sense that the rest of the explanations. Especially since they probably actually expect a 90% casulty rate for "their side" while they "win".
Qatar is aligned with US/Israil/UK. ISIS is controlled at the top by CIA/Massod. Qatar gives funds and support to the CIA's ISIS.
And even if ISIS was independent, if it attacked Qatar the US would take action and bomb all concentrations and large troop movements.
My question is, Why is Russia so weak? If Russia cannot cause internal strife and destabilization within Qatar/Saudi or one of the several lesser arab countries aligned with the US then Russia is very weak in the region.
Or, why has Russia not sponsored a covert action that takes out Qatar's LNG facilities? When was the last time there was any effective covert action impacitng the oil supply from Saudi?
qatar
tavistock,mi6 project.
sas run the muscle
protection racket,
empire of the city of london,cia and the mossad.
qatar so called royals like the house of saud along with eqypt sisi and dog erdogan of turkey all in the closet jews.
talmudic satanists.
greater israel is the root qatar and saudi are apes just bag men for the rabbi
The hell with clean coal... I think the next big thing will be "Clean" nukes... we need them bad... to deliver all over the world... once we get rid of the Barry Bath House muslim 'roid in Chief.