Keep an eye on Qatar. Something interesting is going on in Arab power politics and I suspect Qatar lies at its centre.
Politically and religiously Qatar is important. Qatar is one of the most autocratic but also one of the most ‘liberal’ of the Arab states. It is ruled by an Emir, but has freedom of the press that includes founding and supporting Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera is disliked by many other Arab states because it shows up their won for what they are, government mouth pieces. It is far easier to dismiss western news as infidel bias than to attempt the same with Al Jazeera. In Libya these last days Al Jazeera was banned and shunned while interviews were available for western news organizations. Qatar is also religiously/socially very liberal. Which is not that interesting. But it is liberal while also being Wahhabi. Qatar is the only state governed by Wahhabi law other than Saudi. But while Wahhabi in Saudi is the well spring of hateful Islam of the Al Qaeda type, in Qatar Wahhabism is liberal and tolerant. As such it is a direct threat to Saudi Wahhabism.
And Qatar is expanding its political influence. Qatar has been close to the building of a large LPG plant and port in Yemen. Yemen is Saudi’s back yard, literally, but LPG ties Yemen to Qatar. Qatar is a major player in LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas). It is still a small market but has been growing at about 6% a year for a while now. Spain is one of the largest importers of LPG.
During the current political unrest in Yemen it was to Qatar not to Saudi that the Yemeni president telephoned. In part to ask if the Emir would tell Al Jazeera to stop being so critical of Yemen. Which it would appear he did not. Qatar’s rulers have been careful to be clearly seen not to interfere in Al Jazeera.
Qatar also hosts a major American military base. It has had more open relations with Israel than most Arab nations. But it also has open relations with Hamas and Iran. In short Qatar has set itself firmly as a power broker and partner on a world stage. As Saudi’s and Egypt’s power sets Qatar’s is rising.
….. hmmmmmppphhhhh…. Qatar qui, Qatar la, Qatar sopra, Qatar sotto, Qatar, Qatar, Qatar….
Purely from an arithmetical point of view, Qatar is doing nothing differently than what any of the Gulf countries have done. Worse still, they are taking a page out of Dubai's experience in failure and are stepping it up several notches.
Look! Qatar my fund Al Jazeera that we all feel is a breath of fresh air on the main stream news front. All well and good.
But Qatar, like all other tin pot countries in the area, are doing nothing to contribute anything to building a viable state. They are contributing nothing to their society as indeed they are contributing nothing to humanity in general. Nothing originates from these countries that betters the human condition; nothing. No arts, no literature, no science, no agriculture breakthrough, nothing.
Qatar like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia or Dubai are net destroyers of energy. Both intellectual and material energy that is. These countries squander their God given riches without contributing anything of worth neither to their societies nor to humanity at large.
So, that Qatar should be rising in importance says more about the condition of the world than about Qatar's whimsical attitude.
I remember discussing Dubai in the early 2000s and telling anyone that wanted to listen that from the arithmetical point of view, Dubai was destined to fail. What may have helped Dubai avoid failure and maybe still would help today, is if Dubai would give the nationality to immigrants that could contribute intellectual capital and skills to their otherwise marginally educated and professionally useless society.
I will say the same about Qatar. Qatar can hope to avoid failure if they were ready to widen their social base and inject intellectual capital and basic skills into their society.
The overarching rationale for predicting failure is that it is impossible to build a nation and a society starting at the service and technological level of development. But beyond anything else, it is impossible to build a nation and a society by creating idiotic projects that are economically not viable and just keep building them one after the other. Things like the law of diminishing returns as well as maintenance and replacement costs will eventually bite you in the ass regardless of the amount of exogenous money you have coming in.
Not that these guys have any intention to build a nation and a productive society mind you. These nitwits are hell bent on buying glitzy trinkets and handing out what, relatively speaking, are crumbs to their citizens keeping them intellectually idle but exceptionally arrogant.
That Qatar should be rising in importance in regional and (God forbid) international politics says more about the state of the world than about the presumed "importance" of Qatar.
Guido,
Iatake entirely your points about Qatar and the other nations you mention. I am not writing to be pro or contra Qatar, simply to note what I see as a shift in the power in the Middel East.
I think Saudi is declining and Qartar is rising. I think Wahhabism will be convulsed. I think taht when we see who makes what oil and ags deals with teh new libys, and in particular whether those contracts are going to be settled in dollars or euros will help shape a great deal of the events of the coming years.
Remember, just before the Iraq war it was rumoured that France was at the centre of negotiations for settling Iraq oil deals in Euros not dollars. A switch from dollars to euros and a war erupts. And in the run up France won't support the US in its desire for war and the vehemence of teh anti-French, anti "Old Europe" hate campaign that was unleashed.
That hate campaign was not just about oil but about the role of the dollar. If too much oil and gas is no longer settled in Dollars the dollar and its value begin to fade. And THAT would be the end of the USA in its current Imperial form.