Qatar, Cultivating Friendships With Washington and Moscow, Plays the West Like a Fiddle

Qatar is playing the West like a fiddle, extending a hand to Moscow one day and to Washington the next.Last week, President Trump signed numerous deals with Qatar. Meanwhile, Doha is also cozying up to Moscow. Last month, Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, met with President Putin at the Kremlin. During the emir’s visit, Moscow and Doha deepened their economic partnership, agreeing to contribute $1 billion each to a joint investment fund. On foreign policy, the emir informed Mr. Putin that Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is interested in building ties with Moscow. That potential relationship is important for Mr. Putin, who is fighting to preserve his regional influence now that his ally, Bashar al-Assad, is no longer in power. Days later, Doha’s maneuvering paid off. Qatari officials were in Washington receiving praise for their “strong” and “strategic partnership.”The burgeoning relationship between Qatar and Russia signals that the Kremlin is not as globally isolated as the West desires it to be — and Doha is not as neutral as it pretends to be. It’s past time for Washington to call Qatar’s bluff and stop falling for Doha’s “friendship act” games.Cooperation between Doha and Moscow makes sense, not least because both countries are major energy exporters. But more than that, Russia’s outreach to Qatar plays into its broader strategy of expanding its influence in the Gulf by building economic, political, and military ties with countries that have traditionally relied on NATO partners. For Qatar, growing close to Moscow is a logical move in its quest for global influence.Despite backing opposing sides in the Syrian civil war, Russia and Qatar have steadily expanded their military and security cooperation since the mid-2010s. The first formal breakthrough came in October 2017, when Russia’s defense minister at the time, Sergei Shoigu, made a historic visit to Doha — the first-ever official visit by a Russian defense minister to Qatar. During the visit, Russia and Qatar signed the landmark defense agreement, which laid the foundation for arms deals, technology transfers, and joint defense initiatives. Months later, Qatar’s defense minister, Khaled bin Mohammad Al Attiyah, visited Moscow at Mr. Shoigu’s invitation. He participated in ceremonial events marking the 100th anniversary of the red army and held strategic talks with Russian counterparts. This high-level defense engagement highlighted the mutual interest in deepening ties amid a more multipolar global defense landscape.Russia and Qatar further established their cooperative resume when they signed a memorandum of understanding in 2020 promoting cooperation on counterterrorism and Middle East security issues. While Qatar has not made clear the extent or nature of its arms purchases from Russia, Moscow has expressed willingness to offer Qatar access to its advanced weapons systems, including S-400 air defense systems, drones, and electronic warfare technologies.On the economic side, Qatar is Russia’s top Arab investor, investing more than $13 billion in Russia, mostly in the energy and banking sectors. Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund owns nearly one-fifth of a Russian energy giant, Rosneft, and both countries are members of OPEC+ and the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, which is headquartered in Doha. These investments should be on Washington’s radar. Congress and the administration should scrutinize whether Qatar’s investments and activities in Russia violate the Russia Harmful Activities or Ukraine and Russia sanctions regimes.Politically, Qatar is strengthening Russia’s global standing amid the war in Ukraine and the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. While Qatar has maintained continued neutrality on the Ukraine war — for example, by mediating child reunification cases to the benefit of both sides — enhanced economic cooperation allows Russia to replace fleeing Western capital with Gulf money and collaborate with Doha on gas pricing and export strategies, an important consideration for Moscow as it sees government revenues squeezed by American sanctions.Partnering with Qatar also provides Russia an opening to maintain its foothold in the Middle East, which runs through Syria. Qatar emerged as a leading power broker in Syria after the fall of Mr. Assad in December. Syria’s new government is populated by former members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a Sunni jihadist group that grew out of the Al Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra front. Al-Nusra leaders began liaising “with Qatari military officials and financiers” as early as 2012. Access to Qatar will be important as Moscow jockeys to maintain use of its military bases in Syria.The benefits of the Qatar-Russia relationship go both ways. Economically, Qatar can take advantage of the openings in Russian markets left by Western firms. By increasing Russian dependence on natural gas cooperation, Doha can mitigate competition from one of its main energy peers. And as Qatar seeks to position itself as a trusted broker in and beyond the Middle East, partnering with Russia provides Doha an opportunity to potentially expand its role in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and, by extension, between Russia and America.Briefing reporters on talks between Qatar’s emir and Mr. Putin, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, remarked, “It is difficult to overestimate the role of Qatar as a whole now in many regional and even world affairs. Qatar is our good partner, Russian-Qatari relations are developing very dynamically.” What is clear is that Qatar has one foot in Russia’s orbit and another in the West — and Washington is looking the other way. American policymakers should hold back their trust and praise until Doha proves that it’s the upright friend it claims to be. _________A research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Ivana Stradner, @ivanastradner on X, was co-author of this piece.

Qatar, Cultivating Friendships With Washington and Moscow, Plays the West Like a Fiddle

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