Severy country can claim some praise for the Iran-US ceasefire agreement, which officials from both countries plan to sign later this week. Pakistan had led the talks for some time. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Oman were involved in aspects of the talks. But to hear Donald Trump tell the story, the whole deal might not have happened without the intervention of an important friend in the neighborhood.
“Working with Qatar and the people of Qatar was a real pleasure,” Trump reflected today as he met with Qatar’s emir on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Evian, France. “They were tough; they were strong. You know, they’re the closest to Iran physically. So with other countries, I saw they had to travel about 45 minutes to get there. With you, you could cross the border.” Not at all. A roughly 100-mile stretch of the Persian Gulf separates Qatar from Iran. Qataris are skilled negotiators, but they don’t walk on water.
That water, of course, is important. What lies beneath it forms the basis of Qatar’s unique relationship with Iran: the largest natural gas reserves on the planet, which span the territory of each country. And the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively controlled for the past four months of the war, is the only transit point for the liquefied natural gas that fuels Qatar’s economy and has helped make its small population among the richest per capita in the world.
Perhaps no country is better suited than Qatar to open a channel of communication between Iran and the United States. Qatar has the largest US military base in the Middle East, and for three decades, Washington has been its most important ally in the world. Before the war started, Qatari officials were in Tehran to try to hold meetings with the Trump administration to prevent the conflict. “I have to say, you fought and helped us and with great bravery,” Trump told the emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who sat down without hesitation, wearing a dark gray suit. “So I just want to congratulate you on that, and, uh, you’ll always be my friend.”
It was not difficult to imagine the screams that came from Jerusalem and Riyadh. Qatar’s regional opponents have long seen Doha as a political and financial enabler for Iran-backed extremists across the Middle East. Qatar characterizes its relationship with Tehran as a necessary one, based on geography and shared economic interests, but its neighbors see something more sinister and sinister. What Doha calls neutrality in its foreign policy, they call blocking and buying influence, especially through spending influence in Washington that is out of proportion for a country of only about 300,000 citizens. Qatar’s gift to Trump of a luxury jet last year was such a stunning show of influence that it angered even some Qatari officials. (The country insists that it always intended to sell the plane to the Ministry of Defense, worth about $400 million.) Qatar’s diplomatic and cultural ties to Iran, along with its decision to host Hamas political offices, make it a unique problem in Israel’s eyes.
Allies of the plucky peninsula agree that it is playing on all sides, but they also say that Qatar does this better than anyone. “The Qataris are the best diplomats in the region,” one American official told my colleague Vivian Salama. Qatar’s loyalty to the Trump administration emboldened Tehran: “By empowering them, the Iranian people who wanted to make a deal took it seriously,” the official said.
Whether you call it duplicity in Qatar’s strategy or diplomacy, as far as Trump is concerned, the people of Qatar helped seal the deal the president so desperately wanted, and they remain at the top of his “good” list.
Al Thani would prefer that Trump not draw too much attention to the fact that his delegation had spent the past few months traveling from Doha and Tehran to Washington, DC, and Miami. It was the Qatari delegation that got the talks back after stalling in the spring, diplomats familiar with the matter told me. They added that after a temporary ceasefire in April, Washington and Tehran asked the Qataris to help facilitate the process to reach an agreement.
This is an area that Qatar knows well. The country has turned the mediation of international disputes into its key national industry behind energy production. Last year, Qatari teams were participating in several different negotiations at once, officials told me.
The deal that Qatar helped broker reportedly includes sanctions relief on Iran, a way to reduce or eliminate the country’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, and a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping. That last step was especially important for Qatar, which has not produced or exported liquefied natural gas since the war began.
When it was the Emir of Qatar’s turn to speak at the G7 summit today, he said nothing about his country’s mediating role and instead praised Trump for his leadership. He also took the opportunity to note Qatar’s planned investment in the United States of more than $1.2 trillion. (Tatars have learned better than most to speak Trump’s favorite language.)
“I think it was a very important moment,” Al Thani said. “You made the right decision.”
If the deal holds, Trump will finally have found his way out. It passed through Doha.
Vivian Salama contributed to the reporting of this story.
