The Blockade of Qatar
Four Arab states cut relations with Qatar in June 2017 and closed its only land border. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt gave as their reasons Qatari support for the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements, its relationship with Iran, with which it shares the world's largest gas field, and the Al Jazeera network — which had spent twenty years broadcasting criticism of Arab governments that their own populations could not otherwise hear. The immediate trigger was a set of remarks attributed to the emir on the state news agency, which Qatar said was hacked, and which American investigators later attributed to a contractor working for the Emiratis. The thirteen demands presented as terms included closing Al Jazeera, closing a Turkish military base, downgrading relations with Iran, and paying reparations — a list drafted to be refused, as the Qatari foreign minister said and as one American official agreed. The blockade did not work. Qatar has the highest income per head in the world and a sovereign fund of several hundred billion dollars; it airlifted dairy cattle, opened new shipping routes through Oman, deepened its relationships with Turkey and Iran, and increased its gas output. The Al Udeid air base, the largest American installation in the region, stayed where it was. The rift was formally closed at a summit in AlUla in January 2021 with no demand met. Qatar hosted the World Cup the following year. The episode is a useful demonstration of how a blockade works against a wealthy state with one land border and a great deal of gas. Qatar's economy grew, its foreign policy did not change, and the four states that imposed it ended up negotiating an exit that gave them nothing.
- Year: 2017 CE
- Category: Diplomatic
