Storm in Persian Gulf After Trump Visit

Date: 05 June 2017 - 21:22

News ID: ۴۰۲۶۰

BEIRUT (Dispatches) -- Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain severed all ties with Qatar early Monday, in a renewal of a four-year effort to isolate it and a sign of a new boldness after a visit to the region by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The four Arab states not only suspended diplomatic relations, as they have in the past, but also cut off land, air and sea travel to and from Qatar and ordered their citizens to leave the country.
Qatar, like other monarchies in the Persian Gulf, is a close ally of Washington, and hosts a major American military base that commands the U.S. air campaign in the region.
The severing of all connections created an immediate crisis for Qatar. Qatari diplomats were given 48 hours to leave their posts in Bahrain, while Qatari citizens were allotted two weeks to depart from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Qatar, a relatively small country jutting into the Persian Gulf, has a border with Saudi Arabia and is vulnerable to its larger neighbor. It imports almost all its food, about 40% of it directly from Saudi Arabia. There were reports of runs on food markets after the announcements on Monday.
Air traffic was disrupted, with the United Arab Emirates suspending service to Qatar by its three carriers, Etihad Airways, Emirates and FlyDubai, beginning Tuesday morning. Qatar Airways was banned from Saudi airspace.
Saudi Arabia said it was taking the action to "protect its national security from the dangers of terrorism and extremism.” The Foreign Ministry of Qatar released a statement saying the action had "no basis in fact” and was "unjustified.”
Last month, Qatar said its state news media had been hacked, after comments attributed to the emir, Sheikh Hamad bin al-Thani, were published referring to tensions with Washington over Iran policy and saying Trump might not be in power for long. Qatar denied the comments said it had been the victim of a "cybercrime.”
The other Arab states that took action have long sparred with Qatar over its support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and around the region, including through the broadcasts of the Pan-Arab news network Al Jazeera, which Qatar funds. Qatar’s rivals have also faulted it for condoning fund-raising for militant groups fighting in Syria, although several of the other monarchies in the region have played similar roles.
There was no clear event in the region that might have precipitated the renewal of the campaign against Qatar. But it followed a recent visit to Saudi Arabia by Trump, who made clear that he strongly backed Saudi Arabia in its push against both Iran and against Muslim Brotherhood-style groups. Trump’s support may have helped encourage the other states to renew their campaign against Qatar as well.
In another indication of how the Trump visit may have emboldened Persian Gulf monarchies, over the past two weeks Bahrain has cracked down on opposition from its Shia majority.
At least five people were killed and 286 arrested in the crackdown, which came as the government ordered the dissolution of the country’s last opposition group and the shutdown of an independent newspaper. Amnesty International describing it a "blatant campaign to end all criticism of the government.”
Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, Lebanon, said the new moves had come as Bahrain, Egypt and Saudi Arabia saw an opportunity to distract from their internal troubles and reflected "bullishness” prompted by the Trump administration’s stances — on the confrontation with Iran and on a willingness to look the other way on human rights violations.
Saudi Arabia received a political and material lift from military hardware deals it signed with the United States at the time of Trump’s recent visit, Sayigh said.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are getting "no U.S. pushback” on human rights or on the Yemen intervention, he said, while "Egypt also feels off the hook with Trump, and is using the opportunity to repair ties with the Saudis, reinforce with the Emiratis and be more assertive in Libya.”
But, Sayigh warned, "Cutting relations with Qatar suggests a worrying readiness to be assertive and belligerent, which masks the countries’ deeper problems and challenges and may prove to be a case of overreach.”
The escalating confrontation between Qatar and other Arab states presents a fresh and unwelcome complication for the United States military.
Beyond the military difficulties, a host of multinational corporations have operations in the feuding nations. A Saudi call for companies to withdraw from Qatar could present international executives with a blizzard of difficult choices about where to do business.
Qatar is hosting the 2022 World Cup, for instance, and is building facilities for the tournament that are part of an ambitious construction boom, including creating branches of major international museums and universities.
Economists say the diplomatic rift may cost them billions of dollars by slowing trade and investment and making it more expensive for the region to borrow money as it grapples with low oil prices.
Former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh was quoted as saying that the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Qatar is rooted in "accumulated differences from the past even though both countries are followers of the Wahhabi school."
Prominent Palestinian journalist Abdel Bari Atwan said in a Twitter post that the diplomatic rupture is a "prelude” to a military action against Qatar.
"The next move may be a military offensive to change the regime in Qatar. It’s a war planned months ago,” wrote the editor-in-chief of the Rai al-Youm news website.
Recent reports have suggested Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were divided over their role in Yemen on which they have been waging a deadly war for more than two years now.
In a recent interview with Middle East Eye online news portal, Saudi-backed former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi accused the UAE of acting "like an occupation power in Yemen rather than a force of liberation.”