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U.S. President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 31, 2022.
Qatar going global?
On Monday, US President Joe Biden designated Qatar as a major non-NATO ally after hosting its emir at the White House. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani was the first Gulf leader to meet with Biden in person since he became president.
Biden and Tamim discussed how Qatar might supply more of its plentiful natural gas to Europe in case Russia’s President Vladimir Putin decides to turn off the tap in response to possible US/EU sanctions over the Ukraine crisis. That’s a long shot, given that 90 percent of Qatari gas exports are now tied up in long-term contracts — although Doha has ways to to fill a short-term supply gap if needed.
Still, the meeting tells us two things.
First, Biden wants to make it harder for Putin to weaponize Russian gas. A gradual diversification of Europe’s energy supplies could eventually undermine Russia’s ability to blackmail the EU.
Second, the fact that Tamim is publicly considering the idea means Qatar is ready to expand its geopolitical influence beyond the Middle East.
Eurasia Group analyst Sofia Meranto says Qatar has much to gain from “being called on for help by the US to address energy questions in Europe.” It also signals the emirate’s “ability and ambition to play an outsized role in geopolitics.”
It’s a dramatic turn of events for Qatar. The country of just 2.9 million people and the world’s second-largest exporter of liquified natural gas is famous for punching above its weight diplomatically. But doing so comes with risks.
A year ago, Qatar emerged from a four-year blockade imposed by a Saudi-led group of fellow Arab states unhappy with Qatar’s ties to their rival Iran, support for the Muslim Brotherhood, and the negative media coverage they sometimes received from the Doha-based Al-Jazeera TV network. The blockade — which cut off the emirate by air, land, and sea from Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE — made the Qataris look (further) West for help.
In fact, Qatar, which already hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East, has since become the go-between for Western powers doing business with some of the region’s most dangerous actors.
For example, if you want to talk to the Taliban these days, call Qatar. The militant group now ruling Afghanistan has operated an office in Doha since 2013. The Qataris brokered the Trump administration’s 2020 peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Following the US withdrawal and the Biden administration’s refusal to formally recognize the new Afghan government, Doha is now America’s de-facto ambassador to the Taliban.
In essence, Qatar helps Western governments talk to the Taliban without having to acknowledge the legitimacy of their brutal regime.
The Qataris also sometimes pass messages between the US and Iran, drawing on the emirate's warm ties with Tehran that other Middle Eastern states have long resented. Qatar supports ongoing talks to return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and Iran wants Doha to help negotiate the release of dual-national Iranian-Americans jailed in Iran.
Now, Qatar sees in the looming Ukraine energy crisis an opportunity to take its soft power onto an even bigger stage. And the timing could not be better for Doha.
This November, Qatar will host the 2022 soccer World Cup, the most-watched sports competition in the world after the Summer Olympics. Will Putin attend?
What We're Watching: Qatar-Saudi embrace, Jack Ma's whereabouts, Egyptian incompetence
Qatar blockade lifted: A bitter dispute between Gulf rivals Saudi Arabia and Qatar has begun to ease after Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani flew to Saudi Arabia for the Gulf Cooperation Council summit and was warmly embraced by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS. The immediate cause of the détente was Riyadh's decision to lift a years-long land and air blockade that significantly disrupted Qatar's economic activity and led to a bitter standoff in the Gulf. (The Saudis, along with Egypt, Bahrain, and the UAE launched a joint blockade against Qatar in 2017, citing its support for the Muslim Brotherhood, and regional foes Iran and Turkey.) It's unclear what concessions Qatar made in exchange for beginning the normalization process, though President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, a close friend of MBS, has been lobbying for the move for some time. Qatar has long denied claims that it supports Islamic extremist groups and rebuffed demands like terminating Turkey's military presence within its borders. As for the timing for the rapprochement, it could reflect a feeling that increased GCC cooperation is needed as the incoming Biden administration in the US is expected to promptly re-engage in talks with Iran.
Where is Jack Ma? After two months where he seemed to have disappeared altogether, Chinese billionaire and Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma is now "laying low," according to media reports, after a fallout with the Chinese government. Ma has not been seen in public nor heard of since late October, when he openly criticized China's banks and financial regulators. Just days later, Beijing blocked Ma from listing his fintech company Ant on the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges, in a deal that would have made Ant the world's largest initial public offering. When Ma tried to save the IPO by offering the government a stake in Ant, Beijing doubled down by opening an antitrust probe into Alibaba, the world's top e-commerce firm. Indeed, Ma's fall from grace has sent a strong message to other Chinese tycoons: don't question the regime's wisdom — or else. It also plays into wider public resentment about rising income inequality in China, which the ruling Communist Party is very worried about. Either way, we're watching to see if Ma will find a way to make amends with the government, or whether his low profile is a preamble for Beijing to take over Ant and other parts of the Alibaba empire.
Incompetence and horror in Egypt: Over the past several days, shocking video footage has made the rounds online of an oxygen leak that suddenly killed every patient in the intensive care unit of an Egyptian hospital. Egypt's government first denied the story, accused the Muslim Brotherhood of making it up, and pressured hospital employees to keep quiet. Public outrage is growing, however, and Egypt's health minister has now admitted that hospitals face oxygen shortages as a new wave of COVID takes hold across the country. This combination of horrific event, personal tragedy, state incompetence, and public fury recalls the massive warehouse explosion in Beirut that killed more than 200 people, left 300,000 homeless, and destabilized Lebanon's government in August 2020. Egypt is far more politically stable than Lebanon, but we can expect more of these kinds of stories from other cash-strapped, poorly governed countries in 2021, particularly because they will be the last to receive the vaccinations that allow human, economic, and political recovery to begin.