Hating Qatar
- Don Juice
- Jun 15, 2017
- 2 min read
We already know the situation in the Middle East is nothing short of basket case, but oh man, I did not expect Qatar to get sidelined like this. First let’s explain what’s going on then I'll try to give my best opinion on the matter. Recently Qatar has been pushed to the side by the gulf nations and their allies headed by Saudi Arabia. The excuse for this is Qatar funds terrorism but the bigger criticism is their strong ties with Iran which is unlike many other nations in that region who side with Saudi Arabia on the issue. Donald Trump has sided with Saudi Arabia on the issue condemning Qatar even after he praised Qatar on his trip to the Middle East. Qatar has also supported the Muslim brotherhood in the past which has put them on a collision course with other Arab countries who oppose the group. There’s been a blockade on them and a ban of their funded Aljazeera network.
Qatar is one of the gulf countries and they are known for funding Sunni jihadism. Actually a saying I make is "Saudi Arabia provides the ideology for radical Islam, Qatar just funds it". But let’s get one thing straight here; Saudi Arabia also dabbles in terrorism themselves. Hell, the school of thought for the modern day Sunni extremist called Wahhabism is headquartered in Saudi Arabia. From my perspective on this, I feel this has nothing to do with terrorism support because the Saudis and Qataris back the same people in Syria. It has to do with Iran. Saudi Arabia and Iran are struggling for hegemony in the region and Qatar is not following in line with the Saudi narrative in opposing them because of economic ties so the Saudis have had enough. Also let’s keep in mind, Trump is playing with fire here. We have the largest U.S. base in the Middle East in Qatar called Al Udeid Air Base which hosts the aircraft that we use to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria. So it’s imperative that we tread carefully in taking sides on this because In my opinion I'm not so sure he understand the complexity of the situation considering the fact that he should of also called out the Saudis like he did on the campaign trail instead of giving them billions in arms making himself seem like a walking contradiction once again. I'm not sure what the end goal looks like here but Qatar is really take a beating for something that has enough blame to go around.
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