Qatar's ambitions

Anyone looking for Qatar on a world map practically needs a magnifying glass to find the small nation. Though the mini-state on a peninsula in the Persian Gulf may be small in size, its political and economic influence in the past years has grown progressively.

The basis for this growing clout are the nation's enormous natural gas reserves. Gas revenues are financing huge projects like the 2022 World Cup in soccer, investments in large European companies or financial support for rebel movements.

And there's enough left over for the emirate's 1.9 million people, of which some 300,000 are Qatari nationals. They have the highest per capita income in the world.

Revolutionary support

In recent years, Qatar has played a key role as a negotiator in regional conflicts, for example in Sudan or in southern Lebanon. Since a wave of revolutions swept across the Arab world, though, the country has taken a clearer stance on its positions.

In the Libyan conflict, Qatar at an early stage took sides with the rebels fighting against Moammar Gadhafi. The Arab League's support for a no-fly zone over Libya emerged mainly due to pressure from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Qatar even took part in the surveillance operation with its own fighter jets.

Qatar was the first Arab nation to recognize the National Transitional Council (NTC) in Benghazi. The emirate helped the revolutionaries in marketing Libyan oil. In addition, the Qatari military trained rebel fighters and supplied weapons. These were policies that have paid off. Qatar today is profiting from good business dealings with Libya's new government.

In the case of Syria, the emirate has also taken sides with the opposition. In November 2011, Qatar pushed for the suspension of Syria's membership in the Arab League. Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, who is also minister of foreign affairs, meanwhile is calling for the deployment of Arab and international troops to stop the bloodshed in Syria.

Shift of regional power

The reason for Qatar's growing influence is mainly a result of the weakness of traditional political heavyweights in the region, said Guido Steinberg, Middle East expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs SWP in Berlin. Egypt was busy with its own problems and dropped out as a traditional leading power. Saudi Arabia suffered from the age and lacking vision of its political elite. And Iraq is still not stabilized enough.

According to Steinberg, the Qataris were trying to fill "this power vacuum." In the long term, though, Qatar lacked the political and military weight to replace leading powers in the region, he said.

Many experts anyway doubt that Qatar supports revolutionary movements out of love for democracy. The country is "not credible," said Hamadi El-Aouni, a Middle East expert at Berlin's Free University. After all, the emirate was anything but democratic.

Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani has ruled Qatar since 1995, when he deposed his father in a palace coup - at least without any bloodshed. In terms of legislative power, the country only has an Advisory Council, whose members are named by the Emir. There is no parliament or political parties.

"The Emir is not a democrat," Steinberg said. "He wants to use his democratic rhetoric to win over western support for his policies in the region." Al-Thani may support the democratic movements in Libya, Egypt or Tunisia. But when the uprisings spilled over into Qatar's neighboring country Bahrain, he apparently feared for his own power and supported the brutal oppression of the protestors next door.

Beneficiary of the Arab Spring

Qatar has obviously attempted to benefit from the revolutions across the Arab world. It has thereby mainly supported Islamist powers surrounding the Muslim Brotherhood. The cooperation has a tradition: Qatar has granted Islamists shelter already since the beginning of the 1990s. The Libyan cleric Ali al-Sallabi, who has returned home in the meantime, found refuge in Qatar. The well-known Egyptian television cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi lives in Qatar, as does Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

"Qatar and Saudi Arabia advocate an Islamization of the Arab states," said El-Aouni. According to Steinberg, Qatar hopes that the new Islamic-shaped governments would be "better, ideologically conformed partners" than the old republics under Syria's Bashar al-Assad or Egypt's Hosni Mubarak.

But this policy is not being met with enthusiasm everywhere. Representatives of Libya's NTC are already complaining that aid from Qatar was mainly benefitting Islamist groups. Steinberg said many Islamist adversaries in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt had become opponents of Qatar in the meantime.

The difficult neighbor

Qatar could also turn its neighbor Iran into an enemy through its policies. After all, the Syrian regime is Iran's most important ally in the region.

"If it should become apparent that Qatar will supply Syrian rebels with weapons on a large scale and Iran will have to do more to help maintain the regime, then larger conflicts can no longer be avoided," Steinberg said.

To date, the Qatari leadership has been able to avoid provoking its large neighbor. Qatar shares the largest gas field in the world with Iran. Both countries are therefore dependent on keeping their cooperation as smooth as possible.

Qatar hopes for protection from the US military presence in the emirate. Since 2003, the largest regional US air base has been located in Udeid, Qatar. It is clear, however, that Qatar's new political commitment in the region is a dangerous balancing act for the small and vulnerable country.

Author: Nils Naumann / sac
Editor: Rob Mudge