- Dr. Edy Cohen
- September 5, 2021
- Paper No. 2146
Has Qatar-based Aljazeera finally been unmasked as nothing but a shill for the oil-rich emirate’s absolute rulers?
Qatar
- Dr. James M. Dorsey
- July 6, 2021
- Paper No. 2089
Saudi Arabia has stepped up efforts to outflank the UAE and Qatar as the Gulf’s commercial, cultural, and/or geostrategic hub.
- Jordan Cope
- March 25, 2021
- Paper No. 1977
The UAE has long been the main sponsor of global football (soccer). In recent years, Qatar has sought to usurp that role, competing for club, league, and tournament sponsorships even as it competes for influence in the Middle East’s proxy wars. The UAE and Qatar have reconciled, but there is reason to believe Doha may be using football sponsorships to draw attention and conceal its Islamism as it seeks to supplant Saudi and Emirati influence.
- Dr. James M. Dorsey
- March 9, 2021
- Paper No. 1956
As Russian FM Sergei Lavrov embarks on a four-day visit to the Gulf, Middle Eastern leaders are either struggling to get a grip on Joe Biden’s recalibration of US policy in the region or signaling their refusal to adapt to the president’s approach.
- Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar
- January 15, 2021
- Paper No. 1887
Behind the ending of the dispute between the two Gulf States stands an intense fear of Iran as well as American pressure to renew diplomatic ties. Israel must bear in mind that ties with the Gulf States are not etched in stone.
- Dr. Edy Cohen
- January 15, 2021
- Paper No. 1886
Jared Kushner, son-in-law and Middle east envoy of outgoing US president Donald Trump, was instrumental in ushering in the peace agreements between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, and recently mediated an end to the three-year conflict between Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
- Dmitri Shufutinsky
- November 26, 2020
- Paper No. 1831
Despite their desire to evict sectarianism from their country’s corrupt government, Lebanese civilians are likely to see increased tensions across religious lines. Iran will continue to back Hezbollah despite its regional weakening, while Turkey and Qatar will play a bigger counterbalancing role by increasing their influence on the Sunni community.
- Dr. James M. Dorsey
- November 23, 2020
- Paper No. 1828
With the 2022 World Cup in Qatar only two years away and a resolution of the three-year-old Gulf rift nowhere in sight, government officials, soccer governance executives, and pundits are playing with the notion that the tournament could serve as an icebreaker in the dispute between Qatar and its detractors, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain.
- Dr. Edy Cohen
- September 14, 2020
- Paper No. 1745
Normalized relations between Gulf States and Israel function as a deterrent to Iran. Qatar, which favors Iran at its Gulf neighbors’ expense, opposes this trend. Qatar and its Aljazeera mouthpiece must not be allowed to drive a wedge between Israel and its current and prospective peace partners in the Gulf.
- Irina Tsukerman
- August 27, 2020
- Paper No. 1714
The recent revelations about Sa’ad Jabri, an Islamist and corrupt former Saudi intelligence officer, highlight the discrepancy between Western institutions' criticism of Saudi Arabia in the name of human rights and their support for the former officials most responsible for human rights abuses and security threats associated with the Kingdom. A tangled web of relations between pro-Brotherhood Muhammad bin Nayef regime apparatchiks, pro-Qatar members of US law enforcement (like Ali Soufan), and ideologically sympathetic intermediaries (like Jamal Khashoggi) are threatened by Muhammad bin Salman's reforms.