by Jonathan Schanzer | Commentary | April 17, 2025
On March 7, the podcaster Tucker Carlson released an interview with Qatar’s prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. It was a complete and fully conscious whitewashing of the regime’s transgressions in recent years. Two weeks later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio praised the Qataris for helping to facilitate the release of Delta Airlines mechanic George Glezmann, whom the Taliban had held hostage for two and a half years. “We extend our deepest appreciation to the State of Qatar, whose steadfast commitment and diplomatic efforts were instrumental in securing George’s release,” the statement read. “Qatar has consistently proven to be a reliable partner and trusted mediator, facilitating complex negotiations.”
Then Carlson hosted Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who reported that “in the case of the Qataris, they’re criticized for not being well motivated.” He went on: “It’s preposterous. They are well motivated. They’re good, decent people. What they want is a mediation that’s effective, that gets to a peace goal. And why? Because they’re a small nation and they want to be acknowledged as a peacemaker.”
The fawning treatment of Qatar did not begin with the new Trump administration. Rubio’s predecessor, Antony Blinken, did it too. On January 19, just before the Biden administration’s departure, Blinken “thanked the Prime Minister for his critical role in mediation efforts to reach a cease-fire that will end fighting in Gaza, bring the hostages home, and enable a surge in humanitarian assistance.”
Set aside the undeniable fact that Qatar is a financial patron of both Hamas and the Taliban. Qatar is an autocratic, Islamist, terrorist-supporting, human rights–abusing regime that should not have any hand in U.S. foreign policy. Moreover, this tiny country of just 330,000 citizens represents roughly 0.00004 of the world’s population. Yet it somehow has gained immense influence in American politics. That must end. But before we explore how to do that, we need to understand how Qatar’s rise occurred.
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When I first visited Qatar in 2003, I was less than impressed. Walking in the sweltering heat and humidity, I couldn’t help but notice that nearly everyone around me hailed from Southeast Asia. They were the help, and they represented the overwhelming majority of those living in Qatar. Actual Qataris were nowhere to be found. And they were utterly uninterested in speaking with Westerners seeking to learn more about the Pentagon’s Combined Air Operations Center—located at Al-Udeid, America’s most important air base in the Middle East.
The sprawling and gleaming Al-Udeid had been built to Pentagon specifications at no cost. The location was seen as ideal, just across the Persian Gulf from America’s foremost Middle East enemy, the Islamic Republic of Iran—and near Iraq, to which we had committed our blood and treasure in 2003. This is how it came to be that American war fighters prosecuted our War on Terror from a country that sponsors terrorism.
Qatar, as the U.S. intelligence community had long known, was a haven for future 9/11 mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed. He had wired money from Qatar to al-Qaeda operatives in advance of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Just as U.S. forces were on the verge of trapping him in a net in 1996, senior figures from the Qatari regime warned Mohammed and helped him escape.
In that same year, the Qatari regime created the Al Jazeera television network. The satellite station went on to become a vitriolic mouthpiece for al-Qaeda, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other jihadi factions Washington sought to counter after the 9/11 attacks. As former Bush White House aide John Hannah has noted, Al Jazeera reporters somehow knew exactly when and where attacks against American forces were set to take place in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they were often the first on the scene, providing valuable propaganda for the terrorists America was fighting. Al Jazeera reporters were also somehow able to gain access to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s videos and missives ahead of the competition.
In short, the warning signs were there to demonstrate that Qatar was a bad actor. American policymakers simply chose not to see them.
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For the first few years at Al-Udeid, things went fine. The Qataris were thrilled to host us, because they lacked a military. The very presence of the American Air Force was a deterrent to its enemies. However, the release of WikiLeaks documents in 2010 revealed that this arrangement had been less than ideal. A 2009 U.S. diplomatic cable labeled Qatar the “worst in the region” on counterterrorism. And it soon became clear why.
In 2012, Qatar became the home of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, along with other Hamas figures. The Palestinian terror group’s external leadership moved to Qatar after being jettisoned by the Jordanian and Syrian regimes over the preceding years (even as Hamas itself remained the governing body in Gaza). Qatar was a natural place for Hamas to land, given the regime’s longstanding support for the Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas is a splinter faction of the Islamist movement). In 2012, the emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, visited Gaza and pledged $400 million in assistance. He was the first foreign leader to visit the territory after Hamas wrested it from the rival Fatah faction in a 2007 civil war. As Reuters subsequently noted, “During numerous gatherings in Doha, Meshaal [was] always keen to express his gratitude and prayers to Qatar’s leaders for their support.”
But Hamas was only part of the problem. Qatari policies relating to the “Arab Spring” in 2011 were no less problematic. The tiny Gulf nation actively supported multiple Islamist groups seeking to topple regimes across the Middle East. Among them were Salafi jihadi groups in Syria, including the Nusra Front, now known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. That group conquered Syria in December 2024, and Qatar continues to provide the group with significant financial support.
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