{"id":1839,"date":"2025-09-11T22:38:42","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T22:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vujic-geopolitika.com\/?p=1839"},"modified":"2025-09-11T22:39:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T22:39:09","slug":"katar-sta-sad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vujic-geopolitika.com\/en\/2025\/09\/11\/qatar-what-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Qatar: what now?"},"content":{"rendered":"

After all, Qatar is the world’s key exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), one of the richest countries in the world, with about three million inhabitants, fabulous investments in the USA, EU and new investment steps towards China and Russia. Along the way, there is the strategic Al Udeid Air Base (with the longest runway in the Gulf) – which is also home to the forward headquarters of the US Army Central Command, with several thousand stationed American soldiers.<\/p>\n

In any case, the capital of Qatar, Doha, experienced a “missile shock” out of the blue in June, when Iran, during the “twelve-day war” against Israel, targeted the Al-Udeid base, west of Doha. Reports on the results of that military action by Tehran are contradictory.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, this week’s action by Israel’s warplanes in which ten bombs were dropped on a residential building in an elite neighbourhood of Doha\u2014to eliminate a group of Hamas leaders gathered there with extremely precise targeting\u2014represents the second military strike against a key US ally in the restive region of the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n

In a series of subsequent reactions by Qatar, Israel, the Arab-Iranian neighbourhood, and the wider international community, several signals indicate a possible expansion of the arena of conflict in that region. Maybe still.<\/p>\n

For his part, the Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, warned that “the State of Qatar is committed to decisive action against anything directed at its territories, reserves the right to retaliate and will take all necessary measures to retaliate.”<\/p>\n

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned: “I say to Qatar and all nations that harbour terrorists, either expel them or bring them to justice \u2014 because if you don’t, we will.”<\/p>\n

It is uncertain whether the UN Security Council, at an extraordinary session scheduled at the request of Algeria and Pakistan, would be able to neutralize the aforementioned announcements by Al Thani and Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, observers are anxiously spreading geographic maps.<\/p>\n

Hamas headquarters in Doha, the US military in Al-Udeid, Gaza peace talks, the fate of Israeli hostages, the energy partnership with Iran… is Qatar today in a position to maintain its carefully cultivated neutrality? And is that neutrality still a possible option?<\/p>\n

From another register: if the leaders of Hamas from Doha start to move around the region of the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf, and maybe somewhere further, throughout Asia, who could be targeted? And who can than retain the “right to retaliate”. And then what kind of “retaliation”?<\/p>\n

As things stand now, it seems that striking first Iran, and now Israel on the territory of sovereign Qatar, reminds of the often delicate vulnerability of the actors “in between two fires”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After all, Qatar is the world’s key exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), one of the richest countries in the world, with about three million inhabitants, fabulous investments in the USA, EU and new investment steps towards China and Russia. Along the way, there is the strategic Al Udeid Air Base (with the longest runway […]\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1840,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arabia-new-global-diplomacy-hub-in-action"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vujic-geopolitika.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vujic-geopolitika.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vujic-geopolitika.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vujic-geopolitika.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vujic-geopolitika.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1839"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vujic-geopolitika.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1842,"href":"https:\/\/www.vujic-geopolitika.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions\/1842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vujic-geopolitika.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vujic-geopolitika.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vujic-geopolitika.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vujic-geopolitika.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}