From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Fri Jun 05 2009 - 01:20:06 EDT
Booker Rising
Brooks: "Obama's Mishandling Of Qatar And The Rise Of Emir Al-Thani's
Diplomacy Of 'Balanced Pragmatism'"
Posted by Shamara at 5/30/2009
Webster Brooks is a black moderate who is a Senior Fellow at the
University of Denver's (USA) Center for New Politics and Policy:
In May 2009, the Obama administration sent a back channel intelligence
communication to Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani warning
that the U.S. might close its military bases should Qatar's support for
Iran, Syria and HAMAS continue. When Defense Secretary Gates and Special
Advisor to the Gulf States, Dennis Ross toured the Middle East later in
May, they conspicuously bypassed Qatar - home of U.S. Central Command
headquarters, America's largest air base (al Odeid) and storage facility
for munitions in the Middle East. The chain of events underscores a
dangerous and growing problem between the Obama administration and
Qatar, one of its most important allies in the Middle East; how to
grapple with Iran's expanding influence from the Persian Gulf to the
Levant. At a time when American interests and power are under strong
challenge in the Middle East, the Obama administration's mishandling of
Qatar could result in a devastating setback.
There was a time when American threats against an Arab emirate the size
of Lichtenstein would have been heeded with dispatch. But Qatar is not a
typical Arab state and Emir Al-Thani, the founder of Al Jazeera News is
not a typical Arab monarch. Leading a nation of 1.4 million people with
the fastest growing economy and the second highest GDP in the world,
Emir Al-Thani has refused to allow Qatar to be held hostage to the
strategic imperatives of the United States, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Nor
will he defer Qatar's growing capacity to lead on matters of war and
peace to the "traditional powers" of the Arab League and Gulf
Cooperation Council. Quite the opposite, Al-Thani is the architect of a
new "Balanced Pragmatism" diplomacy that seeks to bridge the divide
between Sunni and Shiia, moderate and radical Islamic movements and
relations between authoritarian and more democratic Arab countries. To
that end, Emir Al-Thani has mobilized Qatar's considerable assets behind
a risky but bold strategy he believes will insure its survival as a
prosperous nation, and prevent Middle East conflicts from escalating
into a destructive regional conflagration.
On the surface, the Obama administration's bullying tactics and arrogant
threats against Qatar are mind boggling. After all, Qatar embodies
virtually every attribute that America could hope for in an emerging
Arab country; a dynamic modernizing economy, access to education and the
electoral process for men and women, an active press, mediation of
regional disputes and host country to a $1 billion U.S. military
installation. But the crux of the dispute is this; President Obama's
aggressive agenda to diminish Tehran's influence in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip is critical to pressure Iran to halt its
nuclear enrichment program by the end of 2009. Qatar's support of HAMAS
and Hezbollah, and their mediation efforts in Lebanon have had the net
effect of expanding rather than isolating Iranian influence. The Obama
administration and their chief Middle Eastern client state, Saudi
Arabia, want to put and end to Qatar's growing diplomatic role that is
shaking things up in the region.
Qatar's diplomatic initiatives over the past three years in Yemen,
Palestine and the Sudan achieved limited but important successes.
However, in June 2008 Qatar's brokering of the Doha Agreement that ended
the Lebanese governments' shutdown and averted a civil war between
Hezbollah and the March 14 Cedar movement was a "game changing" event.
The agreement led to Michel Suleiman's consensus election as Lebanon's
president, a redistribution of National Assembly seats between Lebanon's
confessional parties and Hezbollah's opposition forces obtaining a
"blocking third" legislative veto over any actions taken by the Lebanese
government to diminish its power. Combined with Hezbollah's military
superiority on the ground, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Egypt
were furious that the Doha agreement tipped the balance of power in
Lebanon to Hezbollah and enhanced its legitimacy in the international
community. After the United States backed the Cedar forces and funded
Lebanon's National Army, and the Saudis bankrolled Sunni salafist
militias as a counterweight to Hezbollah's forces, the strategic setback
resulting in the extension of Iranian influence in the Levant was
enormous. Should Hezbollah's electoral coalition with AMAL win Lebanon's
June 7 parliamentary elections, many will look back at the Doha
Agreement as the turning point that allowed Iran to solidify a proxy
state on Israel's northern border.
Following its landmark mediation in Lebanon, Qatar's rift with the
United States, the Saudis and Egypt deepened when Emir Al-Thani called
for a January 16, 2009 emergency summit of Arab League members to
respond to the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. President Mubarak and
Saudi King Abdullah immediately criticized Qatar's call for the meeting
and announced a boycott of the Doha Summit along with Jordan and the
Palestinian Authority. The Egyptians and Saudis insisted that holding
high-level talks on the Gaza War two days before the planned Arab
economic summit in Kuwait on January 19 and 20 was not necessary. But
the timing of the meeting was not the issue. When Sheikh Hamad bin
Khalifa Al-Thani defended the emergency summit by stating that the "war
crimes" Israel committed against the Palestinians in Gaza required an
Arab summit to take collective action to pressure Israel to stop the
war, it was clear that the growing chasm between the pro-American
Saudi-Egyptian camp and the resistance front led by Iran and Syria was
fully in play.
The Egyptian plan Cairo negotiated with Hamas and Israel, was widely
criticized on the Arab street as a Palestinian surrender to Israel.
Egypt was also under fire for closing its Sinai border to Gaza, thereby
denying critical aid to the Palestinians. The Egyptians and the Saudis
supported Israel's invasion of Gaza, and the Abbas-led Palestinian
Authority joined the chorus by blaming HAMAS for the outbreak of the
war. The Palestinian Authority's accusation that Qatar's emergency
summit sought to "exploit the blood of the Palestinians to score
political gains" was the font of hypocrisy as Qatar has been financially
supporting HAMAS since it won the 2005 elections. Despite the Saudis'
and Egyptians' efforts to sabotage the Doha Emergency Summit, the
leaders of Algeria, Comoros, Djibouti, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania,
Syria and Sudan were in attendance. Leading representatives of Iran and
HAMAS addressed the meeting. The summit concluded with a call to suspend
the Arab League Peace Initiative (API) - the Saudi foreign policy
framework adopted by the Arab League. In addition, Qatar and Mauritania
suspended their ties with Israel. In response to the Doha emergency
summit, Arab League president Amr Moussa, minimized its importance by
saying the meeting failed to achieve a quorum of the 22 member Arab
League, and therefore its actions were of no significance.
Emir Al-Thani's willingness to take issue with the United States,
challenge Saudi Arabia's political hegemony in the Arab world, and fight
for a new orientation of the Arab League and GCC, are not the acts of a
reckless or even militant Arab leader. Most national leaders around the
world regard HAMAS and Hezbollah as legitimate "resistance movements"
rather than terrorist organizations. Thus, Emir Al-Thani's support of
the two groups can hardly be considered as support for extremism and
more importantly should not be characterized as explicit acts of
anti-Americanism. On the contrary, Qatar's housing of America's largest
military complex in the Middle East is an act of self-preservation,
insulating Qatar against possible attacks and subversion from its
neighbors - Iran and Saudi Arabia. While Qatar's hosting the U.S.
military increases their vulnerability to attacks by salafists and al
Queda forces, Emir Al-Thani's insurance policy has been to open Qatar as
a sanctuary for radical Arab leaders across the Middle East and
occasionally allowing extremists to transit Qatar in-route to their
destination points.
Equally as complex is Qatar's relationship with its neighbor Iran.
Regardless of the United States' desire to see Qatar "tie off" friendly
relations with Tehran, the reality on the ground is that Iran is the
dominant military power in the Gulf. Its potential to go nuclear means
that Qatar's national interests won't be well served by a hostile
relationship with Tehran, purely for the benefit of the United States.
Qatar and Iran are separated by the Persian Gulf, and have a long
history of lucrative trade relations. Of the six Gulf Cooperation
Council states, Iran and Qatar maintain the closest ties. Unlike the
other Gulf States that have sizable Shiia populations, Qatar is
overwhelmingly Sunni, and therefore does not worry about Iran's
manipulation of a fifth column inside its borders. Both countries are
major oil and gas producers, and share the North Field and South Pars
gas platforms. While Qatari and Iranian claims to the energy platforms
have never been fully resolved and tension has flared in the past over
Qatar's aggressive exploration of both sites, Qatar and Iran have
managed their affairs well. Notwithstanding their support of Iran's
regional allies and giving Tehran a fair hearing in the region's
affairs, Qatar as a United Nations Security Council member voted for
Resolution 1747 imposing tougher sanctions against Iran. At the same
time Qatar has defended Iran's right to peacefully develop nuclear power
under the provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
If Qatar's independence has rattled the United States, it has infuriated
Saudi Arabia. Since Al Jazeera News stormed on the scene 10 years ago
battering down the walls of silence and news censorship that served the
old Sunni monarch's well, Saudi Arabia has been the subject of
unflattering press coverage by the Qatari based station. Relations
between the two nations have been strained since then. In addition to
the Saudis refusing to allow more than 1,250 Al-Jazeera employees to
travel to Mecca for the Hajj, the Saudis blocked a proposed $2 billion
600 kilometer natural gas pipeline running from Qatar's North Field to
Mina Al Ahmadi in Kuwait. The Saudis also rejected the building of a
causeway between Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. But it is Qatar's
growing role as a mediating and political force that has undermined
Saudi Arabia's prestige and power and deepened the quarrel between the
two nations.
In the New Middle East, increasingly divided between the pro-American
coalition led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and the "resistance" alliance
led by Iran and Syria, every Arab country is being forced to choose
sides or maneuver in open space between the two camps. It is the failure
of the traditional Sunni powers, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to solve the
region's trenchant conflicts and staunch Iranian expansion that has
created a leadership void. Qatar's and Emir Al-Thani's bold move to fill
the leadership void in the Middle East with its "Balanced Pragmatism"
approach to problem solving in Yemen, Palestine, Lebanon and the Sudan
should be welcomed by USA.
Qatar has and will make mistakes in attempting to chart a new course for
Middle East diplomacy and engagement. All their efforts will not result
in outcomes favorable to the United States-that goes with the territory.
However, labeling Qatar as a pro-Iranian proxy state or supporter of
terrorism simply cannot be supported by the facts. For an Obama
administration that came to office trumpeting a new day of diplomacy and
outreach in the Middle East, the veiled threats against Qatar were not
only counterproductive; they were an embarrassment. For those looking
for change in the Middle East, look no further than Qatar.
Posted by Shamara at 5/30/2009
http://www.bookerrising.net/2009/05/webster-brooks-op-ed-obamas-mishandl
ing.html