Qatar must rethink the US military base

US involvement in the Middle East and Israel's attacks on Iran and its retaliation make the Al Udeid Military Air Base in Qatar a target

- Thembisa Fakude

The assassination of one of Iran's highest-ranking generals and commander of Al Quds Force, part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qasem Soleimani, opened an unprecedented form of conflict in the Gulf region.

Soleimani was killed in Iraq on 3 January 2020 by an US drone strike while travelling to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi. Iran retaliated by targeting US military facilities in Iraq. Days after the assassination, it fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi air bases housing US forces. According to The Times of Israel, Israel aided the US in that operation.

The leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed by Israel in the Iranian capital Tehran after attending the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian, another violation of the sovereignty of Iran and international law. The killing of Haniyeh in July 2024 came on the heels of the killing of a number of Iranian diplomats at Iran's embassy in Damascus, Syria, on 1 April 2024. Israel - with the support of the US - has continued to assassinate Iranian officials inside Iran at will.

Qatar had joint military operations with the US during the Operation Desert Storm in Iraq in 1991. After the operations, Qatar and the US signed a defence cooperation agreement. This was expanded in 1996 to include the building of Al Udeid Military Air Base at a cost of more than $1 billion. It is the largest US military base in the Middle East.

Iran attacked Al Udeid in retaliation for the US's attacks on the Iranian nuclear sites in Fordo, Natanz and Esfahan in June 2025. Although the strikes were downplayed by the US and Qatar - indeed they seemed to have been choreographed - they exposed a new fault line in future US-Qatar military cooperation. The question on the minds of many Qataris is: "What will happen next time the US decides to attack Iran - will Iran retaliate by attacking Qatar again?"