Saudi Arabia and UAE bit off more than they can chew once they took on Qatar, a country with vast wealth and powerful allies
By David Hearst, Middle East Eye
Whatever their commander-in-chief may tweet, the US military in the Gulf is trying very hard to avoid having to provide it. Which is possibly one reason why the White House and the Pentagon have been saying different things about Qatar this week.
Shortly after Qatar’s land border with Saudi was closed at dawn on 5 June, the Pentagon lauded Qatar’s “enduring commitment to regional security”.
It said pointedly about al Udeid airbase, which is the forward base of US Air Forces Central Command, that “all flights continue as planned”. About 10,000 US troops are based there.
Then came Trump’s tweets, which essentially claimed ownership of the extraordinary moves against Qatar by saying they were the fruits of the address he made in Riyadh before 50 Arab and Muslim leaders. And then came a second Pentagon statement, renewing praise of Qatar for hosting US forces.
The Pentagon was joined by Europe, or least the foreign minister of its most important state, Germany. Sigmar Gabriel said: “Apparently, Qatar is to be isolated more or less completely and hit existentially. Such a Trumpization of treatment is particularly dangerous in a region already plagued by crisis.”
Soon after the Turkish decision, Trump was on the phone to the Emir of Qatar offering mediation; 24 hours after his tweet, it seemed the message from his military had gotten through to him.
Miscalculations
Saudi Arabia and the Emirates have now bitten off more than they can chew.
Their first miscalculation was to buy the Trump narrative. When you purchase a Trump product, you buy a lot more with it. There are side effects, not least the sheer amount of resentment, hostility and resistance Trump himself has created at home.
This is not inconsiderable when you review who resents Trump – the CIA, Pentagon, State Department, senators of all colours, and the judges. This is not just America’s deep state, but if it were only them, they are enough to be going on with.
The much-in-the-news Emirati ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, made the classic mistake of thinking that because he had former defence secretary Robert Gates eating out of his hand, the rest of the defence department would do the same. It plainly did not.
Russia’s US ambassador Sergey Kislyak, now dubbed Washington’s most dangerous diplomat, fell to earth over a similar act of hubris. All of these ambassadors confuse their success as lobbyists with foreign policy-making. The two are different.
Their second miscalculation was to assume that because Qatar was small, no bigger nation would come to its defence. Both Saudi and the UAE have significant investments in Turkey, one of which Abu Dhabi made after it had tried to unseat Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a coup. Both thought Turkey would be bought off.
The Egyptian-Palestinian poet Tamim al Barghouti provided a fitting commentary to this. He wrote on the Facebook page:
“On the 50th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem, an Egyptian-Saudi-UAE-Bahraini-Israeli alliance forms and lays ground and aerial siege around an Arab country for no reason other than supporting the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance and the Arab revolutions over the past two decades, in particular the Egyptian revolution that brought down Israel’s ally and threatened the military authority of Camp David in Cairo. They are not punishing Doha over Syria, Libya, Yemen and the American base.
“They are punishing it for Al Jazeera’s testimony in the wars of Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza and for supporting the Palestinian resistance in 2009, 2012 and 2014 and the Lebanese resistance in 2000 and 2006. They are punishing it for the fall of Mubarak in 2011.
“A bankrupt and terrified military officer who suffers from Macbeth syndrome and who is washing his hands of old blood with a new one and an adolescent who is in a rush to become king and who is ambitious to surpass his cousin to the throne at whatever cost chose the fifth of June specifically in order to announce that their countries had just joined the Israeli strategic depth.”
The final miscalculation? Qatar is not Gaza. It’s got friends with big armies – a country with a population smaller than Houston has got a sovereign wealth fund worth $335bn. It is the largest producer of natural gas in the Middle East. It has a relationship with Exxon. The Saudis and Emiratis are not the only players in Washington. And even Gaza has survived its siege.
** David Hearst is editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He was chief foreign leader writer of The Guardian, former Associate Foreign Editor, European Editor, Moscow Bureau Chief, European Correspondent, and Ireland Correspondent. He joined The Guardian from The Scotsman, where he was education correspondent.