QATAR UNDER ATTACK: IS US STILL A RELIABLE ALLY?

By the time the US informed Qatar of the Israeli attack, ten long, harrowing minutes had already passed—Israel had completed its mission. And they still call this the US commitment to protect Qatar, a country it regards as a key non-NATO ally

- By Ameen Izzadeen

"With friends like these, who needs enemies?" Whoever first uttered those words, the idiom has gained more traction in politics than in any other field. After Israel's attack on Qatar on Tuesday, one imagines the tiny Gulf state repeating them with bitter irony.

Sometimes international relations take the shape of a love triangle. But on Tuesday, Qatar learned that despite its endearing words, pleasantries, gifts, concessions, and companionship, it was only a sidekick; the United States' true love is Israel.

Like the woman betrayed in a love triangle, Qatar must be wailing, muttering these words: “Oh, what of the gifts and praises I heaped on you the last time you came to see me? None gave you a more expensive gift than I did—a US$400 million luxury jet fit for a king of kings. I even gave you a trillion-dollar cheque. Yet in my hour of crisis, you took the side of your true love, even though it was she who attacked me and violated my dignity.”

The US was not there for Qatar in its hour of need. Period.

After the United States' failure to protect Qatar when Israel attacked a residence housing Hamas leadership involved in negotiations to end Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, we, the Middle Eastern watchers, are reminded of the famous words of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey after the king whom he served failed to defend him: "If I had served my God as diligently as I served my King, He would not have given me over in my gray hairs."

Qatar may be a small state, but it plays a larger-than-life role in global diplomacy. Besides its tireless efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and facilitate humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian territory, it also serves as a peacemaker in global conflicts—Afghanistan, Congo, and Libya, to name a few.