Qatar today
Qatar is a small emirate, ruled by an emir with absolute power and with a population of close to three million inhabitants. That, for relatively few years, has been emerging as a new regional power in the Middle East.
View: The Gulf at the center: an x-ray of the new Middle East
Reasons for the regional rise of the emirate
The reasons for the regional rise of this small emirate are clear.
Qatar in the international sphere
With regard to the at international level, the rise of Qatar has been possible thanks to the profound changes in the balance of power that have been taking place in the Middle East.
The loss of power of former regional leaders such as Syria, Egypt (affected by political instability and the jihadist threat) or Iraq has been partially recovered by Qatar, among other actors.
In the internal sphere
Continuing through the internal scope, Qatar has a series of characteristics to highlight: economic prosperity and political stability that are sustained over time and make the rise of the emirate possible. Qatar has enormous natural wealth staged in the gas and oil.
The good management of these riches has turned Qatar into a tremendously rich country.
Qatar also enjoys political stability and does not have problems linked to the division of secretariats, as occurs in Saudi Arabia.
La second internal variable, is based on the American protection in the field of defense, which has allowed Qatar to embark without uncertainty on an active foreign policy focused on the soft power.
Furthermore, the bilateral defense agreement signed with Türkiye in 2014 supports the security of the emirate and strengthens ties between these two emerging countries.
The last internal variable focuses on the ability and capacity that Qatar has demonstrated to maintain cordial relations both with States and with international organizations antagonistic to each other such as Iran, the US or NATO itself, with which it signed a security agreement in early 2018.
Qatar foreign policy
On the other hand, due to real limitations, its foreign policy has focused on the use of soft power. This has been observed in diplomatic activity concentrated in three large areas:
- Its mediation in various peace agreements, such as those with Sudan in 2011 or Lebanon in 2018, which has given it an image as a mediating country.
- Intervention in armed conflicts. These being the cases of Libya, where Qatar supported the rebels against Gaddafi or the closest in time of Syria in the current civil war, supporting the anti-Assad rebel groups. However, this support has caused numerous criticisms from third countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United States and Egypt, nations that have criticized Qatar for its limited collaboration against militant jihadism. As David Andrew Weinberg already stated, Qatar has been and is completely negligent in the persecution of people related to the financing of terrorist activities.
- The hosting of major international events such as the 2022 World Cup.
Al Jazeera in Qatar
Along with these three areas, what stands out above all is the creation and consolidation of the Al Jazeera television channel, recognized as one of the main sources of information for millions of Arabs and non-Arabs in the world who access its content in English.
This positions Al Jazeera as the main tool soft power. And its effect is exemplified by the way in which it has helped transform the relationship between States and their citizens by granting the latter a vast amount of information, previously filtered by the emirate.
Also, it has helped improve the image abroad and mainly in the Arab world as leading country in the field of education, sports...
Events such as the coverage of the Yemen war, emphasizing the effects of the bombings by Saudi Arabia, motivated various Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to ask Qatar to close Al Jazeera.
As a result, Qatar has emerged as a new and active diplomatic power in the regionIt is true that its position is conditional on the American umbrella continuing and its internal variables persisting. Nothing is guaranteed in the region, only change, tension and uncertainty.
Blockade of Qatar
We could say that the Al Jazeera television channel has had a key impact on the situation of blockade suffered by the emirate of Qatar 2017 since.
Graduated in International Relations at Loyola University, debater, and multilingual! I speak English, French, and here I go with the fourth language! I am passionate about the field of Security and Defense, and here I am to talk about international issues that concern us all. Do you read me?
