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During back-to-back summits in recent days,
tiny Qatar displayed some big mood swings.
First the Persian Gulf emirate hosted a Gaza crisis
conference that included Iran's president and Hamas' leader
and became a soapbox to bash America and its Mideast allies.
Then three days later in Kuwait, Qatari leaders had lunch
with Saudi King Abdullah and gushed about unity with
Washington's top Arab partners.
President Barack Obama has inherited the
familiar map of Arab-Israeli minefields. But off to the side
-- sticking like an exclamation point into the Gulf -- Qatar
could quickly become a quandary for the new White House.
"It looks a bit like a cold war in the
Middle East now. There's the side firmly with the United
States and (Palestinian President Mahmoud) Abbas, and the
others backing Hamas and, by extension, seen as moving
toward Iran," said Nadim Shehadi, a Mideast affairs
specialist at the Royal Institute of International Affairs
in London.
"And, like with a cold war, no side is
willing to push it too hard because the risks are so great,"
he added.
Nearly every high-stakes question in the
Middle East these days somehow draws in Qatar, which is the
just half the size of Belgium but strives for a place
alongside Arab heavyweights such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
It is rich in oil and gas reserves, has
wide influence in the Muslim world as the patron of the
Al-Jazeera TV network, and has proved adroit at maneuvering
between rivals.
"You sometimes get the feeling that Qatar
has multiple personalities," said Mustafa Alani, director of
national security and terrorism studies at the Gulf Research
Center in Dubai. "It's hard to say which one will show up."
Qatar once was content to leave the
region's high-profile affairs to others. Then in 1995, a
family coup brought the current emir, Sheik Hamad bin
Khalifa Al Thani, to power and he quickly began to carve out
a new international identity for Qatar. Those ambitions have
grown steadily bolder.
Qatar bid credibly though unsuccessfully
for the 2016 Olympics. Last year, it brokered a complicated
political accord for Lebanon, and it has offered to mediate
talks to end the bloodshed in Sudan's Darfur region.
In the 1990s, it defied Arab hard-liners
and allowed an Israeli trade office to open in the seaside
capital, Doha. Last year, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi
Livni attended a Doha conference on Mideast peace.
It has long had cozy relations with
Washington, hosts one of the largest U.S. air bases in the
region, and allowed the Pentagon set up coordination hubs
for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But now, Qatar appears to be steadying
itself for even larger-- and potentially riskier -- gambits
with Iran, Hamas and other Western foes.
The Gaza aid conference called by Qatar
brought the potential pitfalls with the West into sharp
relief.
Key U.S. allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia
boycotted the gathering in solidarity with Palestinian
leader Abbas. He has accused Qatar of funneling huge amounts
of money to rival Hamas, which Washington and the European
Union consider a terrorist group.
Hamas' Syria-based political chief, Khaled
Mashaal, attended the meeting along with Syrian President
Bashar Assad. The summit closed with a parting shot from
Qatar: expelling the Israeli trade mission that represented
one of the rare examples of tangible Arab-Israeli progress.
But the presence of Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahaminejad at the gathering signaled perhaps an even
deeper policy reassessment by Qatar. The United States and
its main Arab allies are worried about Iranian efforts to
shift the regional balance of power. Tehran makes no secret
of its desire to expand its influence in the Gulf and
elsewhere through proxy groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah
in Lebanon.
Qatar could be looking ahead for safer
ground if the West's showdowns with Iran grow dicier.
Qatar's apparent direction for the moment: trying to carve a
path away from Saudi Arabia as its big brother while paying
homage to Iran's growing clout and confidence.
But Qatar is still apparently interested
in hedging its political bets. It may prove that Qatar is
most comfortable being on the fence, some experts say.
"It does not have to be one or the other,"
said Mehran Kamrawa, a professor of political science at
Georgetown University's Qatar campus. "What they are doing
is playing all sides ... to maximize self interest, ensure a
global and regional role and follow the logic of survival."
This approach appeared on display at the
Kuwait meeting several days after Ahmadinejad left Doha.
Qatar's prime minister, a member of the ruling family,
called for "Arab reconciliation" and remained silent as
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak lashed out at Arab leaders
who have built ties with Iran.
Obama also has indicated that Washington
could be willing to hold direct talks with Iran, and if a
thaw sets in after a 30-year diplomatic freeze, Qatar could
find itself very comfortable holding the middle ground.
"Qatar feels it has a role to play," said
David Butter, Middle East regional director at the
London-based Economist Intelligence Unit. "I am not sure
what the end game is and I am not sure Qatar knows it
either."
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