![]() ![]() It funds thousands of mosque building projects across Asia. This is rich coming from the Saudis who lay out billions spreading Wahhabism, promoting fundamentalism, financing religious schools that teachnothing else but the Quran in classical Arabic and whose products are recognised on par with University graduates in bankrolled Bangladesh and elsewhere. The Saudis and Abu Dhabi accuse Qatar of financing terrorism. And it backs the Muslim Brotherhood while the Saudis lie awake at night fretting over the Brotherhood, regional challenger of Wahhabism the Saudi version of Sunni Islam and the root ideology of jihadism. Qatar has invested billions in housing and welfare in Gaza and bankrolls the Hamas admin – no doubt Hamas puts aside a cut to buy arms. (Qatar, a sheikdom, is no democracy but of a more liberal sort). Its unconcealed contempt for human rights violators, enthusiasm for the Arab Spring and its Westernised male and, Allah forgive, headscarf-less female announcers, is a gadfly in the groin of their Majesties and Emirs. Its capital Doha hosts pesky Al Jazeera which competes with CNN and BBC globally and in the premier regional broadcaster. Qatari desire to keep at arm’s length from the Saudi led bunch creates problems. So it needs to befriend Sunni Saudi Arabia’s arch Shia enemy. km, 43 trillion cu meter field necessitates cooperation with Iran. Qatar shares with Iran, the world’s largest single gas field under the south-central portion of the Persian Gulf. When Britain withdrew after the WW2, a medley of kingdoms, sheikdoms and nations surfaced (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, Trans-Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and the seven sheikdoms in the UAE). Why are the Qatari royals bidding to carve out a modicum of autonomy? The sheikdoms of the Arabian Peninsula were separate tribes till British Imperial power (Cor Blimy the Raj moulded more than India!) subordinated Arabia, the Gulf, Persia and the Middle East. The Saudi monarchy, and its feudal court and state, is the big player in this oil and gas abundant region. The whole lot are satrapies of Saudi Arabia. The Qatari royals and Emir Al Thani, have for two decades had outreach ambitions, by which I mean they don’t want to be excessively bound to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the seven-sheikdom UAE, dominated by one of its constituents Abu Dhabi. To make sense of the Middle East, three dimensions the Saudis and Gulf States, jihadism now reaching into Iran, and Trump, have to be tied together. ![]()
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