Cut Off Qatar
Doha is a foe, not a friend. We should start treating them as such.
Last week, President Trump wrapped up his sojourn to the Middle East, where he met with the leaders of Arab nations to discuss matters of security and economics. But one stood out as the clear favorite. The president visited only three countries on this trip: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. He announced deals in all three, but consistently reserved his greatest praise for the emirs in Doha, going so far as to say that Qatar is going to be “protected by the United States.” This statement of deep friendship with the regime in Doha is unmatched by the administration’s approach to any other nation in the region, including Israel – a nation which the president deliberately avoided on this junket.
Why would such a small country gain such high praise from America’s leader? Much of it comes down to cold hard cash. Doha has been very active in courting the Trump administration, signing hugely favorable investment deals with the president’s companies, splurging on joint ventures with the Trump children, including an exclusive DC social club, and spending hundreds of millions to influence Steve Witkoff, Trump’s top negotiator and shadow Secretary of State. They’ve bailed out Witkoff’s failed real estate deals in Manhattan, spent heavily on the Trump/Witkoff progeny’s cryptocurrency schemes, and offered Trump a lavish jumbo jet that he would use as Air Force One before retiring it at the end of his term for his own personal use. Needless to say, this is an egregious attempt at outright bribery of the president that will end up costing taxpayers dearly and creating a whole world of security risks. But it is a gaudy, fancy jet airliner, so the president clearly cannot resist simply taking the deal as offered – Trojan Horse and all.
But Attorney General Pam Bondi approved it, so what’s the issue? Well, let’s start with the millions of dollars she has been paid by Qatar as a lobbyist, making her opinion on the country a bit questionable. She isn’t the only one in the Justice Department that has taken boatloads of Qatari cash; FBI Director Kash Patel was also a paid shill for Doha prior to his appointment. Qatar spends wildly all around our nation’s capital, bankrolling thinktanks, media companies, online influencers, and lobbyists. They tend to finance the ‘restrainer’ tendency on the political right, seeking a reduction in American influence abroad and a shift towards appeasement of hostile regimes like Iran. For instance, they pay former Fox host and New Right influencer supreme Tucker Carlson a hefty sum to parrot their talking points, which he has done with aplomb.
The emirs in Doha are not simply picking one side to fund, however. Until the New Right phenomenon, seeking retrenchment at home and a reduction in American influence abroad, really took off during the first Trump term, most Qatari funding went to the left. Qatar has long funded progressive causes and promoted left-wing talking points through its in-house media company Al Jazeera. They have spent more than $40 billion to buy influence in America over the past decade and a half, including funding elite universities – building Middle East Studies departments that are virulently antisemitic and anti-American – and lobbying groups that funnel cash to politicians. Their influence in Washington has paid off swimmingly for the Qataris, recently securing for them the coveted status of a major non-NATO ally.
Clearly, this is a bipartisan issue. But why does it matter? The answer is that, despite its possession of a US airbase, Qatar is not a friend, nor is it even neutral. It is an adversary of America that we should be marginalizing, not embracing.
The most egregious instance of Qatari perfidy is in its funding and support for anti-American and antisemitic terrorism. This is not a novel development, as the regime in Doha has long been supportive of jihadist causes. They paid the architect of the September 11th attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, by giving him a cushy patronage job, allowing him to draw a salary while plotting murderous terrorist acts, including several prior to 9/11. They have funded various terror groups directly, aided in the dissemination of terrorist propaganda, and routinely provide other forms of material support for terror, including money laundering. They have officially hosted and given security to leaders of Hamas, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and more. This activity is not limited to the region and has directly hit the US homeland.
Part and parcel of their support for Islamist terrorism is their support for Islamist politics. Qatar has been a massive proponent, funder, and host of the Muslim Brotherhood – the world’s biggest and most influential Islamist political umbrella – for decades. It has boosted Brotherhood-affiliated groups and parties in nearly every state in the region, including in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Its ties to Ankara and the Turkish Islamist authoritarian Recep Tayyip Erdogan are extremely strong; before Trump, Erdogan was the recipient of a lavishly-outfitted private jumbo jet for his personal use. The Brotherhood and its politics are becoming increasingly powerful in Europe, especially among Muslim immigrant groups that tend to run radical. This growth is primarily funded by Qatar. Islamist ideology is violent, totalitarian, and fundamentally antithetical to the values of western civilization. We should not be abetting its greatest backer.
Doha also has a great friend in its neighbor across the Persian Gulf: Iran. The mullahcracy and the Qataris have been thick as thieves, despite their religious differences – Tehran is Shia, Doha Sunni. The two states share an interest in anti-western and anti-Israeli terrorism and activism, cooperate in mining critical natural gas fields in the Persian Gulf, work together economically, and desire the same ultimate ends for the region: the destruction of western influence, including the state of Israel, and the propagation of Islamism abroad so as to undermine western societies. Qatar helps Iran avoid American sanctions, artificially limits what missions can be carried out from the American airbase on its territory, and launders money for the mullahs. And yet American governments over the past two decades have consistently treated Doha like some neutral intermediary between Washington and Tehran. It is nothing of the sort and never has been.
On top of these broad geopolitical issues, Qatar is a bad actor in myriad other ways. The nation is a modern slave state, engaging migrant workers in terrible conditions, often forbidding their departure from the country, and using forced labor for government and private projects. Indentured servitude is the best possible gloss to put on this policy, but state-sanctioned slavery is more accurate. For instance, when the Qataris bribed their way to hosting the 2022 World Cup, they built the stadia for the event using enslaved workers, over 6,000 of whom died in the process. But Qatar isn’t only a force for evil internally; it exports its ideology and foments unrest abroad, too.
Using its media arm, Al Jazeera, it promotes noxious antisemitism, anti-western propaganda, and progressive talking points, depending on which language you are watching in. In English, especially online, Al Jazeera is as woke as it gets; in Arabic, it is the opposite. The major overlap, though, is the antisemitism and anti-Americanism. What’s more, the Qataris are the biggest funder of the widespread campus protests and the institutionally antisemitic Middle East Studies departments that incite them. The entire purpose of this spending spree in American college towns – the most spent by any foreign country, China included – is to create generations of elite Americans who despise the Jewish state, believe utter falsehoods about the region, and have warm feelings towards America’s foes. And it is working in spades, as we have seen since the October 7 massacre.
So what can we do about all this Qatari malfeasance? How can we distance ourselves from Doha while still advancing American interests, both regionally and further afield?
First, and most importantly, is fundamentally altering our defense relationship with Qatar. This is the key to marginalizing Doha and extricating ourselves from its influence. Qatar should immediately be stripped of its Biden-granted status as a major non-NATO ally and diplomatic relations should be downgraded accordingly. We should move our airbase away from Doha and toward our more aligned regional partners, whether that be Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. Shutting down a large military operation, which also hosts US Central Command headquarters, is no small task. But doing so for an airbase is much easier than it is for a naval installation – thankfully, our largest naval station in the region is based in Bahrain, a much friendlier nation. Moving CentCom headquarters is far easier, as it could be shifted to the naval base at Bahrain without issue given its primarily administrative nature. Neither the Emiratis nor the Saudis are perfect allies, but they are far more in line with our regional interests than are the Qataris. Enough American pressure, combined with approval of arms sales and defense agreements, would likely overcome any resistance to US troops being stationed in country. Between these moves, we would be able to marginalize Doha in our defense planning and security architecture, allowing for other tactics to be more successful.
One such move would be to go after Qatar economically and diplomatically. Economic sanctions on Doha for its well-documented material support for terrorism would be well within the prerogatives of Congress or the White House. Few nations on Earth deserve the title ‘state sponsor of terrorism’ more than Qatar. There already exist mechanisms for such punitive sanctions; all we need to do is dot the i’s and cross the t’s. Qatar’s economy is based almost entirely on the export of fossil fuels; reducing their export capacity would deal a severe blow to their wealth and the ability to use it to influence foreign nations. Sanctions could accomplish this goal, as could opening up America’s energy abundance for export, competing hard with Doha and limiting its profitability. We could enhance diplomatic and trade ties with other regional powers, particularly within the framework of the Abraham Accords, to cushion the blow. Expanding that deal to other Arab capitals, especially Riyadh, would provide a diplomatic buttress for American interests in the region while also sidelining Qatar.
Once sanctions are imposed, the excision of Qatari influence from American culture, education, and politics becomes far easier. Institutions that accept money from a state sponsor of terrorism are automatically putting themselves in the federal government’s crosshairs. Very few institutions, whether in the Ivy League or on K Street, would willingly do that to themselves, no matter how good the money is. That may stop future funding, but it will not claw back what Doha has already done. To pressure institutions on that front, Congress should thoroughly investigate all Qatari funding in the US, subpoenaing recipients to testify and explain themselves, as well as answering questions about what influence Doha’s dollars purchased. Using the force of civil rights law to push back hard against campus antisemitism would be another way to minimize the ongoing damage that Qatari funding has caused.
Finally, we should geopolitically reorient ourselves in the Middle East, recognizing who our friends and who our enemies are. We should double down on our historic relationship with Israel, sidelining the Palestinian issue and focusing on our common enemies and strong positive relationship, both economically and security-wise. Part of this strategy would be to fully unleash the Israelis on our shared foes – Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and their patron, Iran. At the same time, we should reward our loyal Gulf allies by backing them to the hilt against their adversaries in Yemen and integrating them more fully into our regional security architecture. Our support, both material and rhetorical, should be reserved for our actual friends, not nations like Qatar that play nice for the cameras and then repeatedly stab us in the back. Lastly, we should end the absurd fiction of negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran and do what we should have done over a decade ago: use America’s military might, combined with that of the Israelis, to destroy the Iranian nuclear program.
Qatar is not our ally. They seek to destabilize our society, foment Islamist terrorism, harm American interests abroad, and kill our people. Their actions over the past 15 years show as much, very clearly. It is time Washington puts down the briefcases full of cash and does the right thing for the country. It is time to cut off Qatar, once and for all.