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Revival of an Old Rivalry: Saudi Arabia and Qatar Clash
20 JUN 2017
Reza Yeganehshakib
A full understanding of the current crisis between Saudi Arabia and Qatar is impossible without looking at the history of the tensions between these relatively new nation states.
The Qatar peninsula’s rulers have been at war with their neighbors several times, especially after the creation of Wahhabism in the Arabian Peninsula by Muhhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792). The House of Saud united Arab tribes in the peninsula around a new puritanical reformist reading of Sunni Islam, and had captured large portions of the area by 1790.
The Al-Saud family made another wave of raids and even captured the holy city of Mecca in 1803, which the Ottoman Caliph did not tolerate. The Sultan sent Mohammad Ali, the mighty ruler of Egypt, to crush the revolt in the Arabian Peninsula. Although the Wahhabi forces were defeated, Wahhabism kept flourishing in the Arabian Peninsula.
These raids were not the only ones the rulers of Qatar had to deal with. Rulers of Qatar who emigrated from central Arabia into Qatar peninsula in the 1700s had already experienced incursions from Ottomans, Egyptians, southern tribes in the Arabian Peninsula, and Bahrainis. If British Army Colonel Lewis Pelly’s 1868 settlement made Qatar a semi-independent state ruled by Muhammad ibn Thani al-Thani under British protection, the Qatari rulers’ adaptation of Wahhabism in 1893 made them ideologically independent from the prevailing Ottoman ideological rule. After this ideological transformation, the complex relationship of Qatari emirs who desired to remain independent of influence by the house of Saud entered a new phase.
It is possible that the expansionist policies and raids under Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud made Al Thani rulers in Qatar more concerned with guarding themselves against the Saudis’ domination, while at the same time following their Wahhabi ideology. Perhaps it was this that led Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Thani to sign a treaty with Great Britain in 1916. In return for British military protection, Qatar surrendered its sovereignty in foreign affairs and territorial governance to Great Britain.
The British protection of Qatar showed its effects during the reign of Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud (1881-1953). He created an unprecedented form of Ikhwan (Brethren) among the Arab tribes by providing material assistance and agricultural supplies. This Wahhabi brotherhood came with the sense of a holy mission to expand its ideology to all corners of the Arabian Peninsula, carrying it on their swords. The Ikhwan captured Mecca and Medina and expelled Sharif Husayn, Britain’s favorite ruler, from Arabia in 1924. This was the real establishment of Al Saud rule over Arabia. However, Qatar, because of its security treaty with Britain, survived the Abd al-Aziz raids. This did not keep them from living in fear of their Wahhabi brothers in Riyadh who wanted Qatar as a Saudi Arabia’s province, however.
The Qatari-Saudi relationship got more complicated when Qatar achieved its independence in September 1971. A few months later, on February 22, 1972, Khalifa ibn Hamad deposed his cousin in a bloodless coup d’état, when his father was hunting with his falcons in Iran. Khalifa ibn Hamad received political, financial, and military support for his coup from the Saudis. This elevated the Saudis expectations from their Wahhabi brother in Doha, because they knew that without their help he would have not been able to capture the throne. This expectation was manifested in Saudi’s opposing Qatar’s bloodless coup in 1995 when Khalifa’s son, Hamad, took the throne from a Saudi-supported monarch.
Meanwhile Qatar started to enjoy massive oil revenue, and it created alliances with world superpowers as well as regional powers to resist Saudi hegemony, especially since Qatar and Saudi Arabia have had a long border dispute that has never been resolved although several treaties were signed in 1965, 1992, and 1996. Yet, Doha continued to cooperate with Riyadh in its local ambitions, so as not to create a hostile feeling in them. In addition, Qatar cultivated a relationship with the United States, the new power in the Persian Gulf region, and cooperated with Saudi Arabia in its campaign against Saddam Hussein in the First Persian Gulf war (1990-1991).
For the same reason, and to have leverage in their negotiations and foreign relations with the Saudis, Qatar, as the world richest nation with the highest amount of per capita GDP, had the means and motive to create and fund new competition against Saudi-funded groups in the region. Doha’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement established in 1928 and well-rooted in the Islamic world, was among these efforts. As a matter of fact, in post-2011 Syria and Iraq, especially after the establishment of ISIS rival, Jibhat al-Nusra, the historic rivalry between the nations has been transformed into a proxy war between Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Recent accusations that Doha supports terrorism are debatable, especially since the accusations primarily come from Riyadh. Qatar has done nothing that the Saudis and their allies have not already done in Iraq and Syria when it comes to supporting jihadists. Several radical Islamic groups such as so-called “moderate rebels,” Syrian Free Army (SFA), Jibhat al-Nusra (nowadays known as the Levantine Conquest Front) all received funds and support from Riyadh.
If Qatar is supporting terrorism, so are the Saudis and their allies. But the allies themselves are very different from each other and do not have a homogeneous policy toward Saudi Arabia. Some of the allied states receive massive amounts of financial aid from the house of al-Saud, such as Egypt and Jordan, and always follow Riyadh’s foreign policy lead. Others, like Turkey and Qatar, cooperate with Riyadh in some security fields in order to keep their enemy close and not turn the Saudis against them. Some, like Bahrain, are under the full control of Saudi Arabia, while others, like UAE, are useful and close semi-independent allies.
After the recent visit by Donald Trump to Saudi Arabia, it seems that the same message that the US new administration sent to Iran, the Saudis tried to send to Qatar: “There is a new Sherriff in town.” But, practicing such power for the new American-imposed sheriff is not without difficulty in the region.
Riyadh has been suffering from a cash reserves depletion after 2014’s dramatic decline of oil prices, and has found it difficult to keep up with costly feuds, especially ones in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. On the other hand, Doha’s ambitious plans in the region, such as spending a massive amount of cash in the Gaza strip, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Afghanistan, as well as funding cultural centers and mosques in the world, are backing the Saudis into a corner while increasing Doha’s leverage. The Saudis, who think that they secured American support after Trump’s visit, are trying to end the old rivalry with Qatar. They are presenting themselves as the new sheriff and gendarme of the Persian Gulf. For Riyadh, the ideal Doha is similar to Manama and is the reason the Saudis tried to expand their Bahrainization policy to Qatar. Yet, as it has been discussed, Qatar besides its international leverage, has lots of economic weight which enables it to resist surrendering to the will of Saudi Arabia.
Qatar is currently the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter and has the world’s largest liquefaction capacity: 77 million tons per annum (MTPA). According to 2016’s International Gas Union forecast for 2021 the largest LNG producer is Australia, with around 87 MTPA, and the United States, after Qatar, will be third with 61 MTPA. However, due to an estimated 46% increase in the global liquefaction capacity, there will be a demand imbalance pushing the spot prices further down. This will create a fierce competition between these countries over market share when Australia and the US LNG terminal are fully online in 2021.
Either Qatar will be pushed to the corner to make room for the US and Australia, or Washington and Canberra should own some shares in Doha’s LNG industry to profit from its LNG export. Exxon Mobile has already invested $30 Billion in the Qatar LNG complex in Ras Laffan and has a 30% interest in the assets. But any conflict may put the investments at risk. We may witness a significant US investment in the Qatar LNG industry in the near future in return for Doha’s gaining Washington’s support in its rivalry against Saudi Arabia.
Likewise, Qatar owns 70% of the US giant LNG facility Golden Pass, while Exxon and ConocoPhillips have respectively 17.6% and 12.4% shares. If such investment and support does not happen, we may expect the US and Saudi Arabia to attempt to paralyze the Qatar LNG industry in any possible way, including creating new revolts and social unrest in Doha, similar to what we saw in Syria. This option seems costly and would affect Western investments in Qatar, as well as damaging Qatar’s LNG clients’ economies.
Any disruption in LNG deliveries, especially since the US and Australia are not ready yet to replace Qatar, may adversely impact the economies of Qatar’s LNG clients in South and South East Asia, particularly, Japan, India and China. On the other hand, Beijing is the United States’ biggest trade partner, with 18% of all US foreign trade. Moreover, Qatar shares the world’s largest natural gas field, North Dome, with Iran, South Pars. Although Qatar placed a temporary short pause on its gas production from North Dome to artificially elevate the demand side of the market, it recently resumed the production. Any future disruption of gas production may only benefit Qatar’s gas producing partner, Iran, which neither the US nor Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies want to see happen. However, these Sunni allies may not be able to come up with an effective combined plan.
https://intpolicydigest.org/2017/06/20/revival-of-an-old-rivalry-saudi-arabia-and-qatar-clash/
20 JUN 2017
Reza Yeganehshakib
A full understanding of the current crisis between Saudi Arabia and Qatar is impossible without looking at the history of the tensions between these relatively new nation states.
The Qatar peninsula’s rulers have been at war with their neighbors several times, especially after the creation of Wahhabism in the Arabian Peninsula by Muhhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792). The House of Saud united Arab tribes in the peninsula around a new puritanical reformist reading of Sunni Islam, and had captured large portions of the area by 1790.
The Al-Saud family made another wave of raids and even captured the holy city of Mecca in 1803, which the Ottoman Caliph did not tolerate. The Sultan sent Mohammad Ali, the mighty ruler of Egypt, to crush the revolt in the Arabian Peninsula. Although the Wahhabi forces were defeated, Wahhabism kept flourishing in the Arabian Peninsula.
These raids were not the only ones the rulers of Qatar had to deal with. Rulers of Qatar who emigrated from central Arabia into Qatar peninsula in the 1700s had already experienced incursions from Ottomans, Egyptians, southern tribes in the Arabian Peninsula, and Bahrainis. If British Army Colonel Lewis Pelly’s 1868 settlement made Qatar a semi-independent state ruled by Muhammad ibn Thani al-Thani under British protection, the Qatari rulers’ adaptation of Wahhabism in 1893 made them ideologically independent from the prevailing Ottoman ideological rule. After this ideological transformation, the complex relationship of Qatari emirs who desired to remain independent of influence by the house of Saud entered a new phase.
It is possible that the expansionist policies and raids under Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud made Al Thani rulers in Qatar more concerned with guarding themselves against the Saudis’ domination, while at the same time following their Wahhabi ideology. Perhaps it was this that led Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Thani to sign a treaty with Great Britain in 1916. In return for British military protection, Qatar surrendered its sovereignty in foreign affairs and territorial governance to Great Britain.
The British protection of Qatar showed its effects during the reign of Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud (1881-1953). He created an unprecedented form of Ikhwan (Brethren) among the Arab tribes by providing material assistance and agricultural supplies. This Wahhabi brotherhood came with the sense of a holy mission to expand its ideology to all corners of the Arabian Peninsula, carrying it on their swords. The Ikhwan captured Mecca and Medina and expelled Sharif Husayn, Britain’s favorite ruler, from Arabia in 1924. This was the real establishment of Al Saud rule over Arabia. However, Qatar, because of its security treaty with Britain, survived the Abd al-Aziz raids. This did not keep them from living in fear of their Wahhabi brothers in Riyadh who wanted Qatar as a Saudi Arabia’s province, however.
The Qatari-Saudi relationship got more complicated when Qatar achieved its independence in September 1971. A few months later, on February 22, 1972, Khalifa ibn Hamad deposed his cousin in a bloodless coup d’état, when his father was hunting with his falcons in Iran. Khalifa ibn Hamad received political, financial, and military support for his coup from the Saudis. This elevated the Saudis expectations from their Wahhabi brother in Doha, because they knew that without their help he would have not been able to capture the throne. This expectation was manifested in Saudi’s opposing Qatar’s bloodless coup in 1995 when Khalifa’s son, Hamad, took the throne from a Saudi-supported monarch.
Meanwhile Qatar started to enjoy massive oil revenue, and it created alliances with world superpowers as well as regional powers to resist Saudi hegemony, especially since Qatar and Saudi Arabia have had a long border dispute that has never been resolved although several treaties were signed in 1965, 1992, and 1996. Yet, Doha continued to cooperate with Riyadh in its local ambitions, so as not to create a hostile feeling in them. In addition, Qatar cultivated a relationship with the United States, the new power in the Persian Gulf region, and cooperated with Saudi Arabia in its campaign against Saddam Hussein in the First Persian Gulf war (1990-1991).
For the same reason, and to have leverage in their negotiations and foreign relations with the Saudis, Qatar, as the world richest nation with the highest amount of per capita GDP, had the means and motive to create and fund new competition against Saudi-funded groups in the region. Doha’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement established in 1928 and well-rooted in the Islamic world, was among these efforts. As a matter of fact, in post-2011 Syria and Iraq, especially after the establishment of ISIS rival, Jibhat al-Nusra, the historic rivalry between the nations has been transformed into a proxy war between Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Recent accusations that Doha supports terrorism are debatable, especially since the accusations primarily come from Riyadh. Qatar has done nothing that the Saudis and their allies have not already done in Iraq and Syria when it comes to supporting jihadists. Several radical Islamic groups such as so-called “moderate rebels,” Syrian Free Army (SFA), Jibhat al-Nusra (nowadays known as the Levantine Conquest Front) all received funds and support from Riyadh.
If Qatar is supporting terrorism, so are the Saudis and their allies. But the allies themselves are very different from each other and do not have a homogeneous policy toward Saudi Arabia. Some of the allied states receive massive amounts of financial aid from the house of al-Saud, such as Egypt and Jordan, and always follow Riyadh’s foreign policy lead. Others, like Turkey and Qatar, cooperate with Riyadh in some security fields in order to keep their enemy close and not turn the Saudis against them. Some, like Bahrain, are under the full control of Saudi Arabia, while others, like UAE, are useful and close semi-independent allies.
After the recent visit by Donald Trump to Saudi Arabia, it seems that the same message that the US new administration sent to Iran, the Saudis tried to send to Qatar: “There is a new Sherriff in town.” But, practicing such power for the new American-imposed sheriff is not without difficulty in the region.
Riyadh has been suffering from a cash reserves depletion after 2014’s dramatic decline of oil prices, and has found it difficult to keep up with costly feuds, especially ones in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. On the other hand, Doha’s ambitious plans in the region, such as spending a massive amount of cash in the Gaza strip, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Afghanistan, as well as funding cultural centers and mosques in the world, are backing the Saudis into a corner while increasing Doha’s leverage. The Saudis, who think that they secured American support after Trump’s visit, are trying to end the old rivalry with Qatar. They are presenting themselves as the new sheriff and gendarme of the Persian Gulf. For Riyadh, the ideal Doha is similar to Manama and is the reason the Saudis tried to expand their Bahrainization policy to Qatar. Yet, as it has been discussed, Qatar besides its international leverage, has lots of economic weight which enables it to resist surrendering to the will of Saudi Arabia.
Qatar is currently the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter and has the world’s largest liquefaction capacity: 77 million tons per annum (MTPA). According to 2016’s International Gas Union forecast for 2021 the largest LNG producer is Australia, with around 87 MTPA, and the United States, after Qatar, will be third with 61 MTPA. However, due to an estimated 46% increase in the global liquefaction capacity, there will be a demand imbalance pushing the spot prices further down. This will create a fierce competition between these countries over market share when Australia and the US LNG terminal are fully online in 2021.
Either Qatar will be pushed to the corner to make room for the US and Australia, or Washington and Canberra should own some shares in Doha’s LNG industry to profit from its LNG export. Exxon Mobile has already invested $30 Billion in the Qatar LNG complex in Ras Laffan and has a 30% interest in the assets. But any conflict may put the investments at risk. We may witness a significant US investment in the Qatar LNG industry in the near future in return for Doha’s gaining Washington’s support in its rivalry against Saudi Arabia.
Likewise, Qatar owns 70% of the US giant LNG facility Golden Pass, while Exxon and ConocoPhillips have respectively 17.6% and 12.4% shares. If such investment and support does not happen, we may expect the US and Saudi Arabia to attempt to paralyze the Qatar LNG industry in any possible way, including creating new revolts and social unrest in Doha, similar to what we saw in Syria. This option seems costly and would affect Western investments in Qatar, as well as damaging Qatar’s LNG clients’ economies.
Any disruption in LNG deliveries, especially since the US and Australia are not ready yet to replace Qatar, may adversely impact the economies of Qatar’s LNG clients in South and South East Asia, particularly, Japan, India and China. On the other hand, Beijing is the United States’ biggest trade partner, with 18% of all US foreign trade. Moreover, Qatar shares the world’s largest natural gas field, North Dome, with Iran, South Pars. Although Qatar placed a temporary short pause on its gas production from North Dome to artificially elevate the demand side of the market, it recently resumed the production. Any future disruption of gas production may only benefit Qatar’s gas producing partner, Iran, which neither the US nor Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies want to see happen. However, these Sunni allies may not be able to come up with an effective combined plan.
https://intpolicydigest.org/2017/06/20/revival-of-an-old-rivalry-saudi-arabia-and-qatar-clash/
