The Gulf crisis: Small states battle it out ( SSRN Working Paper Part 2)
By James M. Dorsey
Shaping the environment
If Qatar’s strategy was to promote political change by
supporting legitimate opposition forces, the UAE’s was to help engineer coups
that would put in power men who were more to their liking. The Gulf crisis,
provoked according to US intelligence officials, by the UAE orchestrating the
hacking of Qatari government news and social media sites in order to post
incendiary false quotes attributed to Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim, was but the
latest example of the Emirates’ interventionist policies. The US intelligence
assertion carries weight given that Qatar invited the FBI to investigate the
hacks that were allegedly approved by senior UAE officials. The false reports
planted by the hack constituted the basis for the boycott of Qatar declared by
the Saudi-UAE-led alliance.[i]
The hack followed a pattern. In 2013, the UAE bankrolled a
military coup in Egypt that toppled Mohammed Morsi, a Brother and Egypt’s first
and only democratically elected president, and together with Saudi Arabia has
kept his successor, general-turned-president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who brutally
cracked down on the Brotherhood, financially afloat.[ii]
The UAE, in a twist of irony, may have created in Turkey,
which has sent troops to Qatar in the wake of the Gulf crisis, one of the major
obstacles to the ability of the Saudi-UAE-led alliance to impose its will on
the Gulf state. Turkish media aligned with the government have accused the UAE
of funding the 2015 failed coup aimed at overthrowing Islamist President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, a watershed event in modern Turkish history, that served as an
excuse for his massive crackdown on dissent. Erdogan has arrested tens of
thousands of his critics; dismissed up to 140,000 people from jobs in the
judiciary, the military, law enforcement, civil service and education sector;
declared a pro-longed state of emergency; and used the failed takeover to
introduce a presidential system of government in which he has far-reaching
powers.
Yeni Safak columnist Mehmet Acet quoted Turkish Foreign
Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu as saying that “we know that a country provided $3
billion in financial support for the coup attempt in Turkey and exerted efforts
to topple the government in illegal ways. On top of that, it is a Muslim
country." Acet said the minister identified the country as the UAE in a
subsequent conversation.[iii]
Daily Sabah, another paper with close government ties, as well as Turkish
foreign ministry officials repeated the assertion.[iv]
Middle East Eye, an allegedly Qatar-supported online news
website, quoted Turkish intelligence officials as charging that Mohammed
Dahlan, an Abu Dhabi-based former Palestinian security chief with close ties to
the UAE’s Bin Zayed, Al-Sisi and Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman,
had served as the UAE’s bagman and contact with Fethullah Gulen, the exiled
Turkish in the United States, whom Erdogan blames for the attempted coup.[v]
The UAE, in a bid to mend fences with Erdogan once the coup had failed,
detained two Turkish generals at Dubai airport and deported them to Istanbul.[vi]
Moreover, a senior UAE foreign minister
official, Abdullah Sultan al-Nuaimi,, told a Turkish columnist that his country
had offered to drop its objection to the Turkish military base in Qatar and was
willing to hand over Gulen supporters resident in the Emirates in exchange for
the extradition of nine Emiratis members of the Brotherhood in Turkey.[vii]
While there is no independent confirmation of the Turkish allegations
against the UAE, what is clear is that Gulen with his propagation of a liberal
and tolerant interpretation of Islam would fit the Emirati efforts to create an
alternative, anti-Salafi, anti-Islamist and anti-Brotherhood religious
authority.
In Libya, the spectacle of small states punching above their
weight and waging proxy wars against each other far from home has at the very
least aggravated the struggle for the future of the country since the 2011
toppling of Colonel Moammar Qaddafi. In a twist of irony, Qatar rather than the
UAE is backing the legitimate, United-Nations-recognized Islamist government
while the Emirates and Egypt support an anti-Islamist alliance led by a
renegade general.
Five of the 59 people listed by the Saudi-UAE-led alliance
as Qatar-supported terrorists were Libyans, including Al Sallabi, the intellectual
and spiritual leader of the Libyan Brotherhood and a disciple of Qaradawi. Al
Sallabi served as the main conduit of Qatari financial and material support for
Islamist rebels in Libya.[viii]
Also listed were Abdul Hakim Belhadj, a former jihadist who was rendered by the
CIA before being returned to Libya, where he emerged as a military commander
and conservative politician; former mayor of Tripoli Mahdi al-Harati who
commanded an anti-Qaddafi militia before heading an anti-Assad group in Syria;
Ismail Mohammed Al Sallabi, Ali al-Sallabi’s brother and the head of another
Libyan rebel group; and Libyan Grand Mufti Al-Sadiq Abdulrahman Ali Al Gharyani.
In the case of Palestine, Bin Zayed convinced the Saudis to
drop Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood offshoot that controls the Gaza Strip, from
the list of groups the Saudi-UAE-led alliance wanted Qatar to distance itself
from to create an opportunity for the return of Mohammed Dahlan, the UAE-backed
Palestinian politician and former security chief who frequently does the
Emirati crown prince’s bidding[ix]
and whom US President George W. Bush described during an internecine
Palestinian powers struggle in 2007 as “our boy.”[x]
If successful, the UAE would have succeeded in clipping Hamas wings and installing
its own man in the Gaza Strip in a move that would likely strengthen
cooperation with Israel, potentially facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian peace
agreement, and take the Jewish state’s increasingly close ties to the Gulf
state out of the shadows.
The UAE effort involved a carrot and stick approach in which
Israel and Palestine Authority (PA) President Mahmood Abbas played bad cop
while Egypt was the good cop in a pincer move that was intended to weaken Hamas.
A lowering of public sector salaries in Gaza by Abbas and reduced
electricity supplies by Israel at the Palestinian leader’s behest[xi]
drove Hamas into the arms of the UAE and Egypt as the International Red
Cross and other international agencies warned of an impending calamity.[xii]
In response, Egypt and the UAE moved to alleviate the
economic crisis in Gaza in a bid to sweeten an agreement on power sharing
between Hamas and Dahlan that was being negotiated in Cairo. At the same time,
Egypt began to send diesel fuel at market prices, but without taxes imposed by
the PA, and has signalled that it would open the crucial Rafah border crossing
between Gaza and the Sinai. Associates of Dahlan were reported to be preparing
the border station for re-opening with a $5 million donation from the UAE.[xiii]
Egypt reportedly was supplying barb wires, surveillance
cameras and other equipment to enhance border security.[xiv]
The UAE, moreover, has earmarked $150 million to build a power station and has
hinted that it would fund construction of a port. “If the plan does come to
fruition, it could make an Israeli-Egyptian dream come true… It will ensure a
fine profit for all sides, except for Abbas and Palestinian aspirations to
establish a state,” said prominent Israeli columnist Zvi Bar’el.[xv]
In Yemen, the UAE walked a tightrope between ensuring that
it had a seat at the table in Riyadh while pursuing its own goals that at times
differed from those in the kingdom and managing a widening rift with
Saudi-backed Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Hadi fired in April 2017
two ministers known for their close ties to the UAE.[xvi]
One of the ministers, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, a former governor of Aden, declared
the formation of a transition council that would govern southern Yemen.[xvii]
Al-Zubaidi’s move fuelled concern that the UAE was laying the groundwork for a
return to the pre-1990 era when Yemen was divided between two states in the
expectation that the south would align itself with the Emirates. "The
extent of this rift reverberates in the Arab coalition, particularly as the
sidelined southern leaders are supported by the UAE," said Yemeni a
government official.[xviii]
In a twist of irony, the UAE and Qatar were both seeking to
project themselves as key US allies by focusing on different aspects of overall
US policy. While the UAE positioned itself as Little Sparta, Qatar largely
appealed to values underwriting US foreign policy such as freedom and more
pluralistic societies. Both countries presented themselves as pushing reform of
Islam, albeit in ways that supported their visions of regime survival.
The UAE quietly nurtured the creation of moderate Islamic
institutions such as the Muslim Council of Elders, the Global Forum for
Prompting Peace in Muslim Societies and the Sawab and Hedayah Centres in a bid
to counter the influence of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Brotherhood, and more
militant Islamist forces.[xix]
For its part, Qatar promoted itself as a centre of theological change that
endorsed basic political rights and opposed autocracy.
It was that ideological divide that deepened the rift between
the Gulf states. Accusing the UAE of being against Islam,”[xx]
Qaradawi rejected religious edicts by UAE and Saudi-backed clerics as well as
Egyptian Grand Mufti Ali Juma during the 2011 uprisings that insisted that
Muslims had an obligation to obey an unjust ruler as long as he publicly did
not commit apostasy. Drawing on the jurisprudential principle of quietist Islam
that stipulates that legitimate peaceful
protests are rendered illegitimate on the basis that they will lead to
civil strife, Juma ordained that for “the youth of Egypt, it is obligatory for
all of you to withdraw … Coming out to challenge the legitimacy (of the regime)
is forbidden, forbidden, forbidden! Right now, you are guilty of causing this
unrest which is not in the country’s interests.”[xxi]
In opposition to the backing of autocratic regimes
beleaguered by protesters by Juma and other UAE-and Saudi-backed scholars,
Qaradawi developed a jurisprudence of revolution that was anathema to Emirati
rulers.[xxii]
“If they are used to achieve a legitimate end, such as calling for the
implementation of the Sharia, or freeing those imprisoned without legitimate
grounds, or halting military trials of civilians, or cancelling a state of
emergency which gives the ruler absolute
powers, or achieving people’s general aims like making available bread,
oil, sugar, gas, or other aims whose legitimacy admits of no doubt-in things
like these, legal scholars do not doubt the permissibility (of
demonstrations],” Qaradawi ruled.[xxiii]
Adding fuel to the fire, Qaradawi took his support of
dissent a step further by calling for the killing of Libyan leader Moammar
Qaddafi. “To shed “the blood of this man is lawful. His blood is halal for two
reasons… Because of the massacres which he has perpetrated against the Libyan people
… and…as a preventive measure against what may happen (if he is not stopped)… Therefore,
it is from out of the jurisprudence of balancing, the jurisprudence of
consequential outcomes, and the jurisprudence of priorities that we sacrifice
one man for the sake of the salvation of a people...
Whoever is able to draw
nearer to God by killing him, may he do so, and may his blood rest upon my
shoulders! By God, this man (Qaddafi) is a criminal man, truly!”, Qaradawi
ordained in a sermon at a Doha mosque.[xxiv]
Qaradawi’s fatwa fed claims made by Saudi Arabia after the eruption of the 2017
Gulf crisis that Qatar had been a party to a 2003 Libyan plot to assassinate
Saudi King Abdullah.[xxv]
It also coincided with one of the few occasions in which Qatar participated in
military intervention as Qatari fighter jets and troops joined Western forces
in support of anti-Qaddafi rebels.[xxvi]
In effect, Qaradawi was conveying religious legitimacy to
Qatari policy by redefining the traditional notion banning rebellion against
the ruler as relating to the rebellion of the ruler against his people.
“When
it is not the people who rise in arms against a regime but it is the regime
which starts massacring them – because of peaceful demonstrations for example –
that power loses its legitimacy and religious scholars must intervene to defend
the believers,” Qaradawi argued.[xxvii]
Qatar’s sincerity and willingness to back political change
and let the chips fall where they fall and Qaradawi’s ideological
legitimization of Qatari policy quickly failed their litmus test with the
eruption not long after the revolts in Egypt and Libya of uprisings in Bahrain
and Syria. Bahrain was simply too close to home for Qatari comfort while
Iranian support of President Bashar al-Assad and the growing involvement of Lebanon’s
Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in the Syrian conflagration threatened the
delicate balance between Iran and Saudi Arabia that Qatar sought to manoeuvre.
Acting as a barometer of Qatari policy, Qaradawi was quick
to condemn the Bahraini revolt, even though it started like others in the
region as a peaceful, cross-section protest in demand of greater equality and
social and economic opportunity, and as in Syria, stopped short of calling for
the fall of the regime. “Truly the Bahraini revolution, it’s not a revolution,
rather it’s a sectarian uprising… That’s the problem, it’s Shiite against
Sunni, I’m not against the Shia, I’m against fanaticism…They aren’t peaceful,
they’re using weapons,” Qaradawi said.[xxviii]
Qaradawi spoke as Saudi and UAE forces entered Bahrain in March 2011 with the
blessings of Qatar and at the invitation of the minority Sunni Al Khalifa
ruling family that had deliberately turned the revolt into a sectarian conflict
with the island state’s majority Shiite population.
Similarly, advances in Syria in 2013 by Hezbollah and
Assad’s forces that alarmed Qatar and other Gulf states prompted Qaradawi, even
more clearly than he did in the case of Bahrain, to break with his
long-standing advocacy of improved Sunni-Shia relations and support of Hezbollah
against Israel, again legitimizing Qatari support for militant Sunni rebel
groups. In a further indication of a brief rapprochement in Qatari and Saudi
policy, Qaradawi’s condemnation of Hezbollah also constituted a reversal of his
earlier support of the group against Saudi condemnations of it because it was a
Shiite militia. It also reflected Qatar’s naïve belief that it could ring fence
the process of regional change, supporting it in some countries and joining the
UAE-Saudi-led counterrevolutionary roll back of achievements elsewhere, as well
as the reputational cost of picking and choosing rather than acting on
principle.
“Tens of thousands of these men have come from Iran! From
Iraq! From Lebanon! From such a multitude of countries, from all the countries
of the Shia! They’re coming from all over the place - to fight the Sunnis… Everyone who is able, who knows how to fight,
who knows how to use weapons, who knows how to use the sword or the gun…must go
to Syria to aid their brothers,” Qaradawi thundered from his pulpit in Doha.[xxix]
Similarly, Qaradawi turned on the Alawite sect from which Assad and many of his
associates hail and that is a pillar of the Syrian regime, condemning its
adherents with the words of 14th century, controversial Islamic scholar
Taqi ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah as “more unbelieving than Christians or Jews.”[xxx]
War of words
The Gulf crisis is but the latest instalment of the battle
of the small states. The UAE and Qatar have been waging a covert war in the
media and through fake NGOs even before Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain first
withdrew their ambassadors from Doha in 2014. The media war substituted for
imposition of a diplomatic and economic boycott of Qatar at the time of the
withdrawal. The three states contemplated a boycott but opted at the time to
first try a less aggressive attempt to force a change in Qatari policies.
The UAE, the world’s largest spender on lobbying in the
United States in 2013[xxxi],
sought, according to US media reports to plant anti-Qatar stories in American
media. To do so, it employed California-based Camstoll Group LLC that was
operated by former high-ranking US Treasury officials who had been responsible
for relations with Gulf state and Israel as well as countering funding of
terrorism.[xxxii]
Camstoll signed a consulting agreement with Abu Dhabi’s state-owned Outlook
Energy Investments LLC in December 2012,[xxxiii] a week after it was incorporated in Santa
Monica.[xxxiv]
Camstoll reported receiving $4.3 million in 2012[xxxv]
and $3.2 million[xxxvi]
from Outlook in 2013 as a retainer and compensation for expenses.
Under the contract, Camstoll would consult Outlook on
“issues pertaining to illicit financial networks, and developing and
implementing strategies to combat illicit financial activity.”[xxxvii]
In its registration as a foreign agent, Camstoll reported that it “has
conducted outreach to think tanks, business interests, government officials,
media, and other leaders in the United States regarding issues related to
illicit financial activity.”[xxxviii]
Camstoll’s “public disclosure forms showed a pattern of
conversations with journalists who subsequently wrote articles critical of
Qatar’s role in terrorist fund-raising,” The New York Times reported.[xxxix]
Camstoll reported multiple conversations with reporters of The New York Times,
The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Dow Jones News Wires, Financial Times,
Bloomberg News, CNN and the Washington Free Beacon.[xl]
The lobbying effort resulted among others in a Daily Beast
feature entitled ‘U.S. Spies Worry Qatar Will ‘Magically Lose Track’ of
Released Taliban’ that asserted that Qatar’s track record is troubling” and
that “the emirate is a good place to raise money for terrorist organizations”[xli]; a
CNN special report asking ‘Is Qatar a haven for terror funding?’[xlii] The
Washington Post carried stories reporting that “private Qatar-based charities have taken
a more prominent role in recent weeks in raising cash and supplies for Islamist
extremists in Syria,”[xliii] there
was “increasing U.S. concern about the role of Qatari individuals and charities
in supporting extreme elements within Syria’s rebel alliance” and linked the
Qatari royal family to a professor and U.S. foreign policy critic alleged by
the U.S. government to be “working secretly as a financier for al-Qaeda.”[xliv]
One Washington Post story quoted among others “a former U.S.
official who specialized in tracking Gulf-based jihadist movements and who
spoke on the condition of anonymity because much of his work for the government
was classified.” The description of the source appeared to fit the bios of
Camstoll executives, including the company’s owner, Matthew Epstein, a former
Treasury Department official who served as its financial attaché to Saudi
Arabia and the UAE; Howard Mendelsohn, former Acting Assistant Secretary of
Treasury, who according to a US State Department cable “met with senior
officials from the UAE’s State Security Department (SSD) and Dubai’s General
Department of State Security (GDSS)” to coordinate disruption of Taliban
financing,[xlv]
and other former Treasury officials who had been contact with Israel regarding
their strategy to counter funding of Palestinian groups.[xlvi]
In disclosing the UAE’s efforts to influence US media
reporting on Qatar, The Intercept’s Greenwald argued that “the point here is
not that Qatar is innocent of supporting extremists… The point is that this
coordinated media attack on Qatar – using highly paid former U.S. officials and
their media allies – is simply a weapon used by the Emirates, Israel, the
Saudis and others to advance their agendas… What’s misleading isn’t the claim
that Qatar funds extremists but that they do so more than other U.S. allies in
the region (a narrative implanted at exactly the time Qatar has become a key
target of Israel and the Emirates). Indeed, some of Qatar’s accusers here do
the same to at least the same extent, and in the case of the Saudis, far more
so.”[xlvii]
Qatar’s response to the media campaign against it was
illustrative of its ineptitude in fighting its public relations and public
diplomacy battles, clumsiness in developing communication strategies, meek
denials of various accusations, and failure to convincingly defend its
controversial policies. In a bid to counter its World Cup critics, Qatar
contracted Portland Communications founded by Tony Allen, a former adviser to
Tony Blair when he was prime minister, according to Britain’s Channel 4 News.[xlviii]
The television channel linked Portland to the creation by
Alistair Campbell, Blair’s chief communications advisor at Downing Street
Number Ten and a former member of Portland’s strategic council, of a soccer
blog that attacked Qatar’s detractors. Britain’s Channel 4 reported that the
blog projected itself as “truly independent” and claimed to represent “a random
bunch of football fans, determined to spark debate.” The broadcaster said the
blog amounted to “astro-turfing,” the creation of fake sites that project
themselves as grassroots but in effect are operated by corporate interests.
Portland admitted that it had helped create the blog but asserted that it was
not part of its contractual engagement with Qatar. The blog stopped publishing
after the television report.
Qatar also thought to undermine UAE efforts to tarnish its
image with the arrest in 2014 of two British human rights investigators of
Nepalese origin. The investigators worked for a Norway-based NGO, the Global
Network for Rights and Development (GNRD), that was funded to the tune of €4.2
million a year by anonymous donors believed to be connected to the UAE.[xlix]
The investigators were detained and later released at a time that Saudi Arabia,
the UAE, and Bahrain had withdrawn their ambassadors from Qatar in a bid to
force it to stop it support for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Founded in 2008, GNRD was headed by Loai Mohammed Deeb, a Palestinian-born
international lawyer who owned a UAE-based consultancy, and reportedly operated
a fake university in Scandinavia, according to veteran Middle East author and
journalist Brian Whitaker who took a lead in investigating the group.[l]
GNRD said it aimed to “to enhance and support both human rights and development
by adopting new strategies and policies for real change.”[li]
In 2014, GNRD published a human rights index that ranked the
UAE at number 14 in the world and Qatar at 97. Heavy criticism of the index
persuaded the group to delete the index from its website. GNRD, moreover,
consistently praised the UAE’s controversial human rights records with articles
on its website on the role of women, the UAE’s “achievements in promoting
and protecting the family, environmental efforts, care for the
disabled and its protection of the rights of children.[lii]
Appointed as a monitor of Egypt’s 2015 parliamentary
election GNRD reported that “the Egyptian people have experienced a unique
process toward democratic transition, and despite the fact that minor errors
and inaccuracies occurred, these do not shed a negative light on the overall
results of the electoral process.”[liii]
GNRD made no mention of the fact that the election occurred in an atmosphere in
which hundreds of Muslim Brothers were killed by security forces, thousands
more were incarcerated and repression limited expression of dissenting opinions
and independent media coverage.[liv]
GNRD was closed following police raids in 2015, the
confiscation of $13 million in assets, and charges of money laundering that
have yet to be heard in court.[lv]
Norwegian investigators said that UAE diplomats had fought hard to prevent the
case going to court.[lvi]
Punching above their weight
The Gulf crisis is not about to end any time soon. Yet, it
has already established that small states need not surrender to larger
neighbourhood bullies and can not only stand their ground but also shape the
world around them. That is a conclusion that small states like Singapore that were
debating their place in the international pecking order and their ability to
chart an independent course of their own in the wake of the Gulf crisis, appear
to have drawn. The debate in Singapore, echoed in other small states, was
sparked when former UN ambassador and dean of the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public
Policy Kishore Mahbubani asserted that Qatar's troubles showed that small
states should always behave like small states and be wary of getting entangled
in affairs beyond their borders. "In the jungle, no small animal would
stand in front of a charging elephant, no matter who has the right of way, so
long as the elephant is not charging over the small animal's home territory,"
Mahbubani said.[lvii]
Using an animal metaphor of his own, Singapore ambassador-at-large
Bilahari Kausikan retorted, in a rare public airing of differences, that
Mahbubani’s approach would amount to surrender of one's sovereignty and set a
dangerous precedent. "Singapore did not survive and prosper by being
anybody's tame poodle... I don't think anyone respects a running dog,"
Kausikan said.[lviii]
Adding his voice, prominent Singaporean diplomat Tommy Koh
argued that “the lesson learnt is that, at the end of the day, a small country
must develop the capacity to defend itself. It cannot depend on others to do so.”
said.[lix]
Ong Keng Yong, the head of RSIS and Singapore’s ambassador to Iran and Pakistan
asked, “what happens when small states’ core interests are impinged upon, and
caught within broader big-power dynamics? Or do small states’ interests not
matter, and should be subordinated to that of big states? Putting it another
way, must Singapore be so governed by fears of offending bigger states that we
allow them to do what they want or shape our actions to placate them even if
they affect our national interests? ... There is no choice but to stand up.
Doing otherwise will encourage more pressure from those bigger than ourselves.”[lx]
The jury on the differing UAE and Qatari approaches is
nonetheless still out. Qatar has been able to defy the boycott and, so far
convincingly, reject demands of the Saudi-UAE-led alliance that would undermine
its sovereignty and turn it into a vassal based on its financial muscle and an
international refusal to endorse the approach of its detractors that many view
as extreme, unrealistic and unreasonable.
Taking the long view on the assumption that change is
inevitable, Qatar could emerge as having been on the right side of history even
if the notion that it can promote change everywhere else except for at home is
naive at best. A wave of nationalism with Qataris rallying around their emir in
defiance of the Saudi-UAE-led boycott that reinforced the notion that Qatar is
Al Thani and Al Thani is Qatar, masked criticism of the ruler’s policies and
the Gulf state’s repression of dissidents.
Assuming Qatar emerges from the crisis with its ability to
independently chart its own course and emotions have calmed, Sheikh Tamim’s
challenge will be the transformation of the wave of nationalism into a form of
sustainable support for his regime. “In the marketed image of Qatar, all
Qataris accept being ruled by the Emir, and always have done. In the idealized
vision of Qatar, the image projected to the outside world, there is no
politicking, there are not always even clear positions on international
affairs, except a position defined by security, development and prosperity… Yet
this idealized narrative obscures a more complicated and interesting history, a
history that lies just beneath the five-star hotels, international news channels
and premium airport lounges. Qataris themselves have not forgotten this
history,” noted Qatar scholar Allen J. Fromherz.[lxi]
The notion that Qatar can be exempted from waves of
political change is embedded not only in the Gulf state’s approach to support
of opposition forces everywhere else and hard-hitting news coverage of everyone
but itself, but also in its approach to education. The attraction of top
Western universities such as Georgetown and Northwest to Doha’s Education City
is to ensure that Qataris have internationally marketable skills and can
connect to the global community. It is not in Fromherz’s words “to create a
larger ruling class that is a source of criticism of the ruling Al-Thani
family.”[lxii]
As a result, there is a dearth of critical histories, analysis, and literature
that offers an alternative perspective on official Qatari mythology.
Qatari poet Muhammad Ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami realized that
when he was sentenced in November 2011 to life in prison in what legal and
human rights activists said was a “grossly unfair trial that flagrantly
violates the right to free expression” on charges of “inciting the overthrow of
the ruling regime.” His sentence was subsequently reduced to 15 years in
prison. Al-Ajami’s crime appeared to be a poem that he wrote, as well as his
earlier recitation of poems that included passages disparaging senior members
of Qatar’s ruling family. The poem was entitled “Tunisian Jasmine”. It
celebrated the overthrow of Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.[lxiii]
Al Ajami’s sentencing coincided with Qatar getting its own
albeit limited taste of the fallout of the year’s popular uprisings with conservative
Qataris organizing online boycotts of the state-owned telecommunications
company as well as Qatar Airways and in a few cases publicly questioning the
ruler’s authority to issue decrees. The protests were largely connected to
concerns related to the Gulf state’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup, including
cost, a significant rise in the number of migrant workers, being exposed to
criticism of the country’s labour regime and human rights record, and the risk
of having to make concessions on public mores and the consumption of alcohol to
accommodate fans. Conservative Qataris worry that an increasing number of their
compatriots, often dressed in full-length robes, the Gulf's national dress,
would drink publicly in hotels and bars. "It is a taboo in Qatar to see
somebody wearing the national dress and drinking," said Hassan Al Ibrahim,
a Qatari commentator.[lxiv]
Some Qataris were also critical of Qatar’s support of the Brotherhood.[lxv]
A group of some 500 Qataris called in early 2012 for a
boycott of the state-owned airline, a major tool in the positioning of the Gulf
state as a global travel hub, in protest against its serving of alcohol on
flights, high fares and failure to allocate more jobs to Qatari nationals. The
protesters’ campaign featured the Qatar Airways logo with a no entry sign
superimposed on it. It followed an earlier protest decrying the level in
telecommunications services. The protests were fuelled when the Qatar
Distribution Company, a Qatar Airways owned-retail shop, introduced pork
alongside the alcohol it was already selling to expatriates. "I never
thought the day would come that I have to ask the waiter in a restaurant in
Qatar what kind of meat is in their burgers," said a Qatari on Twitter.
"Ppl don't get it. Its not about the pork—its about us feeling more &
more like a minority—in our own country,” tweeted another Qatari.[lxvi]
Just the beginning
However the Gulf crisis ends, Qatar’s revolutionizing the
Middle East and North Africa’s media landscape with the 1996 launch of Al
Jazeera speaks to the ability of small states to shape their environment. The
television network’s free-wheeling reporting and debates that provided a
platform for long suppressed voices, shattered taboos in a world of staid,
state-run broadcasting characterized by endless coverage of the ruler’s every
move. Al Jazeera, despite its adherence to the Qatari maxim of change for
everyone but Qatar itself by exempting the Gulf state from its hard-hitting
coverage, forced irreversible change of the region’s media landscape in advance
of the advent of social media.
Qatar’s brash and provocative embrace of change as opposed
to the UAE’s subtler projection of power that shies away from openly
challenging the powers that be, may be too risky an approach for small states
to emulate. What is clear, however, is that the ability of small states to
chart their own course is at the end of the day a function of vision, policy
objectives, assets small states can leverage, ability to network, appetite for
risk, and the temperament of their leaders. Qatar and the UAE represent two
very different approaches that offer lessons but are unlikely to serve as
models. In the final analysis, both Qatar and the UAE may pull off punching far
above their weight even if they fail in achieving all their objectives. It
comes however at a price paid in part by others that ultimately may come to
haunt them.
Already, the long-standing media war between the UAE and
Qatar in which allegations of support of terrorism bounce back and forth, has
prompted victims of 9/11 to consider naming the UAE alongside Saudi Arabia as a
defendant in a host of law suits. Court documents filed in New York alleged
that Dubai Islamic Bank "knowingly and purposefully provided financial
services and other forms of material support to al Qaeda ... including the
transfer of financial resources to al Qaeda operatives who participated in the
planning and execution of the September 11th attacks."[lxvii]
That could be just the beginning.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S.
Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of
Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World
of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with
the same title, Comparative Political Transitions
between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr.
Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario and three forthcoming books, Shifting
Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa as
well as Creating Frankenstein: The Saudi Export of Ultra-conservatism and China
and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom.
[i] Karen
Deyoung and Ellen Nakashima, UAE hacked Qatari government sites, sparking
regional upheaval, according to U.S. intelligence officials, The Washington
Post, 16 July 2017, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-qatar-crisis-uae-hack-20170716-story.html
[ii] Ibid.
Kirkpatrick
[iii]
Mehmet Acet, 15 Temmuz’u fonlayan Körfez ülkesi (The Gulf country that funded
July 15), Yeni Safak, 12 June 2017, http://m.yenisafak.com/yazarlar/mehmetacet/15-temmuzu-fonlayan-korfez-ulkesi-2038429?n=1
[iv]
Yunus Paksoy, UAE allegedly funneled $3B to topple Erdoğan, Turkish government,
Daily Sabah, 13 June 2017, https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/2017/06/13/uae-allegedly-funneled-3b-to-topple-erdogan-turkish-government
[v]
David Hearst, Exclusive: UAE 'funnelled money to Turkish coup plotters,' Middle
East Eye, 29 June 2017, http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-uae-funnelled-money-turkish-coup-plotters-21441671
[vi]
Daily Sabah, 2 Turkish generals in Afghanistan detained by authorities in Dubai,
26 June 2017, https://www.dailysabah.com/asia/2016/07/26/2-turkish-generals-in-afghanistan-detained-by-authorities-in-dubai
[vii]
Kenan Akin, UAE: We have no objection to a Turkish base in Qatar (BAE:
Türkiye'nin Katar'da üssü olmasına itirazımız yok), Yenicag, 17 July 2017, http://www.yenicaggazetesi.com.tr/bae-turkiyenin-katarda-ussu-olmasina-itirazimiz-yok-43553yy.htm
[viii]
Mukhabarat el-Jamahiriya, Libya: The correlation between the extremists in the
Eastern region, Al Qaeda core, Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, and the extremist
groups, 24 March 2011, http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/032411-Gaddafi-INTEL-report.pdf#page=5
[ix]
James M. Dorsey, All the UAE’s men: Gulf crisis opens door to power shift in
Palestine, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 9 July 2017, https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2017/07/all-uaes-men-gulf-crisis-opens-door-to.html
[x]
David Rose, The Gza Bombshell, Vanity Fair, April 2008, http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/04/gaza200804
[xi]
Raf Sanchez, Israel cuts Gaza electricity after Palestinian president says he
will no longer pay the bill for Hamas, The Telegraph, 12 June 2017, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/12/israel-cuts-gaza-electricity-palestinian-president-says-will/
[xii]
International Committee of the Red Cross, Electricity shortages affect all
aspects of life in Gaza, 15 May 2017, https://www.icrc.org/en/document/Gaza-power-fuel-crisis#photo-44835
[xiii]
Amos Harel, If Gaza Doesn’t Explode, Thank Egypt, the Qatari Crisis and Abbas'
Biggest Rival, Haaretz, 5 July 2017, http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.799519
[xiv]
Kifah Ziboun, Egypt to Provide Hamas with Barb Wires, Surveillance Cameras,
Asharq Al-Awsat, 2 July 2017, https://english.aawsat.com/kifah-ziboun/news-middle-east/egypt-provide-hamas-barb-wires-surveillance-cameras
[xv]
Zvi Bar’el, The Dahlan Plan: Without Hamas and Without Abbas, Haaretz, 29 June
2017
[xvi]
Agence France Presse, Rifts grow on both sides of Yemen conflict, 12 May 2017, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-4498198/Rifts-grow-sides-Yemen-conflict.html
[xvii]
Khalid Al-Karimi, UAE-Saudi differences risk boosting separatists in Yemen, The
New Arab, 16 May 2017, https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2017/5/16/uae-saudi-differences-risk-boosting-separatists-in-yemen
[xviii]
Ibid. Agence France Presse
[xix] Ibid.
Chaudhuri
[xx] Ibid.
Roberts
[xxi]
YouTube, Audio clip of Mufti Ali Juma during the revolution and comment on
Sheikh Mohammed Saad Azhari,, 25 October 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzf_79q9fKo
[xxii]
David H. Warren, The ʿUlamāʾ and the
Arab Uprisings 2011-13: Considering Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the ‘Global Mufti,’
between the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Legal Tradition, and Qatari Foreign
Policy, New Middle East Studies, 2014, http://www.brismes.ac.uk/nmes/archives/1305
[xxiii]
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, The legitimacy of peaceful demonstrations (شرعية المظاهرات السلمية), Facebook, 27 November 2013, https://www.facebook.com/alqaradawy/posts/672339929472741?stream_ref=5
[xxiv]
Yahya Michot and Samy Metwally (trans), The fatwa of Shaykh Yûsuf al-Qaradâwî
against Gaddafi, Hartford Seminary, 15 March 2011, https://www.scribd.com/document/51219918/The-fatwa-of-Shaykh-Yusuf-al-Qaradawi-against-Gaddafi
[xxv] Al
Arabiya, Saudi royal adviser reveals Qatar-Libya plots to assassinate late King
Abdullah, 16 June 2017, https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2017/06/16/Saudi-royal-adviser-reveals-Qatar-Libya-plots-to-assassinate-late-King-Abdullah.html
[xxvi]
Ian Black, Qatar admits sending hundreds of troops to support Libya rebels, The
Guardian, 26 October 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/26/qatar-troops-libya-rebels-support
[xxvii]
Ibid. Warren
[xxviii]
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Sheikh Qaradawi and demonstrations in Bahrain (الشيخ القرضاوي ومظاهرات البحرين),
YouTube, 19 March 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tGJvhR0hYg
[xxix]
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Friday sermon by Dr. Qaradawi 05/31/2013 (خطبة الجمعة للدكتور القرضاوي 31-5-20), YouTube, 31 May
2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLHXSWCar78
[xxx] Ibid.
Al-Qaradawi, Friday sermon
[xxxi]
Lindsay Young. 2014. What countries spent the most to influence the USA in 2013,
May 8, Sunlight Foundation, http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/05/08/what-countries-spent-the-most-to-influence-the-usa-in-2013/
[xxxii]
Glenn Greenwald. 2014. How former Treasury officials and the UAE are
manipulating American journalists, September 26, The Intercept, https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/25/uae-qatar-camstoll-group/
/ David D. Kirkpatrick. 2014. Qatar’s Support of Islamists Alienates Allies
Near and Far, September 7, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/world/middleeast/qatars-support-of-extremists-alienates-allies-near-and-far.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%221%22%3A%22RI%3A8%22%7D
[xxxiii]
US Department of Justice. 2012. Exhibit A to Registration Statement Pursuant to
the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended, December 10, http://www.fara.gov/docs/6144-Exhibit-AB-20121210-1.pdf
[xxxiv]
Wysk B2B Data. 2014. Wysk Company Profile for CAMSTOLL GROUP LLC, THE, August
26, http://www.wysk.com/index/california/santa-monica/vvnan6g/camstoll-group-llc-the/profile
[xxxv]
US Department of Justice. 2013. Supplemental Statement Pursuant to the Foreign
Agents Registration Act of 1938 as amended, July 30, http://www.fara.gov/docs/6144-Supplemental-Statement-20130730-1.pdf
[xxxvi]
US Department of Justice. 2014. Supplemental Statement Pursuant to the Foreign
Agents Registration Act of 1938 as amended, January 30, http://www.fara.gov/docs/6144-Supplemental-Statement-20140130-2.pdf
[xxxvii]
Ibid. US Department of Justice, 2012
[xxxviii]
Internet Archive. 2013. Camstoll Group, LLC Foreign Agents Registration Act
filing, July 30, https://archive.org/stream/745411-camstoll-group-llc-foreign-agents-registration/745411-camstoll-group-llc-foreign-agents-registration_djvu.txt
[xxxix]
Ibid. Kirkpatrick
[xl] Ibid.
US Department of Justice 2013 and 2014
[xli]
Eli Lake. 2014. U.S. Spies Worry Qatar Will ‘Magically Lose Track’ of Released
Taliban, June 5, The Daily Beast, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/05/u-s-spies-worry-qatar-will-magically-lose-track-of-released-taliban.html
[xlii]
Erin Burnett. 2014. CNN OUTFRONT SPECIAL REPORT: Is Qatar a haven for terror
funding?, June 8, CNN, http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2014/06/18/outfrontcnn-special-report-is-qatar-a-haven-for-terror-funding/
[xliii]
Joby Warrick. 2013. Syrian conflict said to fuel sectarian tensions in Persian
Gulf, December 18, The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/syrian-conflict-said-to-fuel-sectarian-tensions-in-persian-gulf/2013/12/18/e160ad82-6831-11e3-8b5b-a77187b716a3_story.html
[xliv]
Joby Warrick. 2013. Islamic charity officials gave millions to al-Qaeda, U.S.
says, December 22, The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/islamic-charity-officials-gave-millions-to-al-qaeda-us-says/2013/12/22/e0c53ad6-69b8-11e3-a0b9-249bbb34602c_story.html
[xlv]
US Embassy United Arab Emirates. 2010. US-UAE Further Cooperation to Disrupt
Taliban Finance, January 7, Wikileaks, http://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10ABUDHABI9_a.html
[xlvi]
US Embassy Tel Aviv. 2009. GOI'S New Terror Finance Designation Strategy, July
9, Wikileaks, https://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/07/09TELAVIV1502.html
[xlvii]
Ibid. Greenwald
[xlviii]
Channel 4 News. 2014. FA chief slams attacks made on blog set up by Qatar's PR,
September 26, http://www.channel4.com/news/fa-chief-condemns-online-dirty-tricks-by-qatar-s-pr-firm
[xlix]
European Commission, Transparency Register, http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/consultation/displaylobbyist.do?id=193279811928-83
[l]
Brian Whitaker, An odd organisation, Al-Bab.com, 6 September 2014, http://al-bab.com/blog/2014/09/odd-organisation#sthash.HGGz7
[li]
GNRD’s website has been closed and links to it various pages have been removed
[lii]
GNRD’s website has been closed and links to it various pages have been removed
[liii]
GNRD’s website has been closed and links to it various pages have been removed
[liv]
James M. Dorsey, UAE embarks on global campaign to market its brand of
autocracy, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 11 February 2015, https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2015/02/uae-embarks-on-global-campaign-to.html
[lv]
Brian Whitaker, 'Rights group' GNRD goes bust, Al-Bab.com, 5 July 2016, http://al-bab.com/blog/2016/07/rights-group-gnrd-goes-bust
[lvi]
Interviews with the author, September to December 2015
[lvii]
Kishore Mahbubani, Qatar's troubles showed that small states should always
behave like small states and be wary of getting entangled in affairs beyond
their borders, The Straits Times, 1 July 2017, http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/qatar-big-lessons-from-a-small-country
[lviii]
Belmont Lay, Ambassador-at-large Bilahari Kausikan rebuts LKY School of Public
Policy dean Kishore Mahbubani, Mothership, 2 July 2017, http://mothership.sg/2017/07/ambassador-at-large-bilahari-kausikan-rebuts-lky-school-of-public-policy-dean-kishore-mahbubani/
[lix]
Tommy Koh, International law serves as shield and sword but small countries
must also be self-reliant, The Straits Times, 4 July 2017, http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/small-countries-must-be-self-reliant
[lx]
Nur Asyiqin Mohamad Salleh and Chew Hui Min ,Minister Shanmugam, diplomats
Bilahari and Ong Keng Yong say Prof Mahbubani's view on Singapore's foreign
policy 'flawed,' The Straits Times, 2 July 2017, http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/prof-kishore-mahbubanis-view-on-singapores-foreign-policy-deeply-flawed-ambassador-at
[lxi] Ibid.
Fromherz, p. 2
[lxii]
Ibid. Fromherz, p. 11
[lxiii]
James M. Dorsey, ITUC: Qatar agrees to trade unions amid region’s call for
greater freedom, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 2 December 2012, https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2012/12/ituc-qatar-agrees-to-trade-unions-amid.html
[lxiv]
Ted Mann, Qatar Moves to Curb the Use of Alcohol, The Atlantic, 7 January 2012,
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/01/qatar-moves-curb-use-alcohol/333395/
[lxv] Ibid.
Al-Qassemi
[lxvi]
James M. Dorsey, Alcohol ban raises specter of problems for Qatar’s hosting of
2022 World Cup, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 11 January 2012, https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2012/01/alcohol-ban-raises-specter-of-problems.html
[lxvii]
Jacob Fischler, 9/11 Plaintiffs Demand Dubai Islamic Bank's Documents, Law360,
15 July 2015, https://www.law360.com/articles/679255/9-11-plaintiffs-demand-dubai-islamic-bank-s-documents
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