Stress am Golf

Seit langem hatte sich angekündigt, dass Saudi Arabien und andere Golfstaaten Schritte gegen Katar unternehmen würden, sollte das Emirat nicht seine engen Bindungen zum Iran und der Muslimbüderschaft lockern. Kaum jemand allerdings erwartete, dass diese Schritte so radikal ausfallen würden und die Saudis zusammen mit Kuwait, den Arabischen Emiraten und Ägypten alle diplomatischen und auch wirtschaftlichen Beziehungen zu Katar abbrechen und damit das kleine Land de facto isolieren würden.

James M. Dorsey führt sie auf:

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, by breaking off not only diplomatic but also economic relations with Qatar, is likely to make it this time round far more difficult for the Gulf state to resist pressure to change its controversial policies.

The stakes are far higher than when Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Doha in 2014 for a period of ten months, but failed to force Qatar to change its policies. Saudi Arabia and the UAE by now also breaking off economic ties are also seeking to disrupt Qatar’s air, sea and land links and complicate its exports and imports, and particularly its food supplies.

The stakes are also higher given that Qatari fulfilment of Saudi and UAE demands would humiliate the Gulf state to a degree that it would become a vassal of its bigger Gulf brethren.

The demands are believed to include the muzzling if not closing of Qatar-backed media, including Al Jazeera, the Arabic version of The Huffington Post and London-based Al Araby Al Jadid and Middle East Eye.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are also seeking the expulsion of all leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls the Gaza Strip, as well as Azmi Bishara, a close associate of Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, who heads the Doha Institute.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are further demanding that Qatar limit its relations with Iran to economics based on the fact that it shares the world’s largest gas field with the Islamic republic.

Fuelling the hard line against Qatar is fury over the Gulf state’s alleged payment of  a $1 billion ransom to an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria and Iranian security officials for the release of 26 members of the Qatari royal family and about 50 militants captured by jihadis in Syria. The Qatari royals were kidnapped in December 2015 while on a falcon hunt in southern Iraq.

By targeting food supplies, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are testing Sheikh Tamim’s mettle and seeking to engineer a situation that potentially would be conducive to his replacement if he fails to bow to Saudi and UAE demands. Various media reports have already suggested that the two states may be gunning for his removal as emir.

Qatar’s ability to resist the Saudi and UAE pressure is likely to be determined by how the United States responds to the Gulf crisis, to what extent Saudi Arabia and the UAE seek to force third parties to abide by their boycott, and whether Qatar can maintain food supplies and ensure that prices don’t go through the roof.

Trade sources said that Saudi Arabia and the UAE had halted their exports to Qatar of white sugar. Consumption of sugar in the Gulf state, like elsewhere in the Muslim world, is highest during the current holy month of Ramadan. Qatar imports an average of 100,000 tonnes of white sugar a year.

Panicked Qataris rushed Monday to supermarkets to hoard food and water supplies after news broke that their country’s frontier with Saudi Arabia, Qatar’s only land border, had been closed.