Saudi Arabia and its allies have issued a list of 13 demands to be imposed on the Qatar government in return for the lifting of their blockade against the tiny Gulf state. The demands appear to start with those demands from a previous Saudi ultimatum, and expand on them in several major ways.
As with the ultimatum, the new demands start by insisting Qatar must permanently shut down all state media outlets, especially the popular al-Jazeera network. They also demand Qatar close all diplomatic facilities in Iran, and agree to broadly limit future trade with Iran.
On top of the old demands, the new list includes the imposition of an unspecified fine that Qatar would have to pay to the Saudis and their allies for disagreeing with them publicly in the past, and also a pledge by Qatar to expel the Turkish military from their base on Qatari soil.
As with the previous ultimatum, this list is seen as infringing on Qatar’s basic national sovereignty on several very specific fronts, and while Kuwait willingly delivered the list to Qatar, it’s highly unlikely the Qatari government will accept it.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had warned that they wanted the list to be “reasonable,” and it’s highly unlikely the US will view this list as such, particularly the demand to expel Turkey, as it’s hard to imagine the US would view kicking out a NATO member from a base as a “reasonable” part of the GCC’s demands.
Right. Rex would have a problem with Turkey. Qatar giving up their sovereignty, not so much.
Actually, while Trump has been Dancing With Sauds, its Rex Tillerson who’s been a voice of reason and who has been pretty much backing Qatar over the last week or so.
Wow. Those demands really are out of frontal cortex territory. I may have to reconsider my initial notion that this tussle was just fronting CIA-Pentagon office politics.
One can see the U.S. wanting Turkey out of Qatar; U.S. ‘protection’ has less value if Turkey hedges Qatar as well.
The rest may as well be a declaration of war. Perhaps Saudi Arabia is planning war, but not with Qatar but with Iran, and wants to be sure Qatar and its potentially critical little news station is out of the way.
A hot war with Saudi Arabia might put Iranian ascension into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on ice a little longer. However, a high level of Gulf unity would be needed; Qatar’s independence is a problem and its real estate certainly valuable as a springboard to attack Iran.
Sounds similar to the thireteen demands the Austro-Hungarian empire made to Serbia in order to create a pretext for the invasion that led to the Great War (aka WW1). No more Austro Hungarian empire, hopefully their history ends the same way soon.
From which country did the majority of the 9-11 attackers come from? Hint: It was not Qatar.
From which country did a prince and son of a wealthy family start the Al-Qaeda group that attacked us on 9-11? Hint: It was not Qatar.
Which country insisted that we remove our airbase from their country not long before the Iraq War? Hint: It was not Qatar.
Which country accepted our airbase and which has been hosting both our major airbase and CentCom command? Hint: That was Qatar.
Trump now wants to ally us with the country most responsible for the 9-11 attacks. Now that’s what I call an “America Last” type of policy.