Qatar adheres to subversive policies despite three years of boycott

Fatima Abdul Ghani

UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said that the Gulf cannot return to how it was before the Qatar crisis, stressing that the causes of the crisis are known and the solution is also known and will come in due time.

On June 5, 2017, the Arab Quartet countries – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain – decided to boycott Qatar after proving Doha’s involvement in supporting and harboring terrorists in an attempt to undermine and destabilize Arab national security. After three years, Doha still adheres to its policies in support of terrorism and fueling conflicts in the region.

The Arab boycott decision came after years of unveiling Qatar’s disruptive plans and agendas in the Arab region and its support for terrorism. In pursuit of a dream of its weak leadership, Doha was the first supporter of the terrorist Brotherhood organization to sow chaos and violence in Egypt in a failed attempt to strike at its institutions, destroy its development plans, and create a rift between Egyptians, but Egypt was able to uncover its plans and cut off its arms.

Arab Gulf countries have suffered from Qatar’s disruptive moves since 2014, as Doha has harnessed all its capabilities to interfere in the affairs of the Gulf states and also betrayed the Arab coalition supporting legitimacy in Yemen, instead cooperating with the Iranian-backed Houthi militia.

Qatar’s bloody fingerprints could also clearly be seen in the Arab Spring countries. From Egypt to Syria and Iraq to Yemen and Libya, Qatar has spared no effort to support terrorist organizations with all means to attempt to topple those countries and expand Doha’s baby influence on the global map.

The Qatari regime was not satisfied with only providing logistical support to terrorist organizations, but it also devoted its media trumpets, especially Al-Jazeera, to promote lies and raise doubts, manipulating news of decisions by the international community and their successive condemnations of Qatari violations.

As usual, the Doha media trumpets serve as platforms available at any time to incite sedition and host the most dangerous extremists on international terrorist lists. Nothing has changed, as they continue to spew out toxins of sedition. It does not seem that Qatar is succeeding in developing a coherent strategy to get out of the crisis. On the contrary, Doha still insists on sticking to its subversive policies, ignoring the heavy losses incurred by its arrogance and perseverance.

According to a report by the Qatar opposition website Qatarileaks, Doha has suffered losses during the past three years in light of the Arab Quartet countries boycotting it, Turkey and Iran taking advantage of the Arab boycott to drain its resources, and the regime’s failure to obtain international support. Qatar’s foreign debt increased to more than 25%, while the total public debt increased to more than half a trillion riyals. These losses have pushed the Qatari regime to depend on Turkey and Iran, as Doha supported the Turkish lira with more than $25 billion, equivalent to half of Doha’s budget for this year.

Qatar’s losses from the Arab boycott have not been limited to the economic side only, but are also reflected on the political level, as Doha is experiencing a state of increasing regional isolation, which has been clearly demonstrated in Doha’s lack of political representation in the Arab world and internationally. Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani was absent from many Arab and international summits, as the Arab boycott has increased the difficulties of Doha’s communication with other parties and has reduced the factors of foreign investment, especially since most of its investors were from Gulf Cooperation Council countries, with deposits having decreased by $40 billion in private deposits.

The Qatari regime has failed to obtain political support, especially from Western countries, which made Doha pour billions of dollars into European and American public relations firms in order to clean its reputation of the successive accusations of supporting terrorism, paying more than $30 million a month to improve its image and promote its dubious agenda. But these misleading campaigns have not succeeded, as Western countries continue to criticize Qatar’s support for terrorist and extremist groups, especially the terrorist Brotherhood.