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Merged Qatar scandal/GCC nations cut ties with Qatar

Some unconnected thoughts thrown in:

*) Kuwait and Oman so far have not joined KSA and UAE. Why not?

*) UAE has amiable ties with Iran in some areas, non-oil trade being quite significant. This cannot just be a move against Iran

*) Just heard speculation that perhaps KSA/UAE are trying to force Qatar to commit mor clearly to an anti-Iran course

*) Muslim Brotherhood may be main target

*) USA trying to mediate now - taken by surprise? Is USA secretly behind this action (i.e. Trump made a deal that worked), or is KSA taking advantage of deal with USA (i.e. Trump suffers blowback)?

*) KSA's neighbors need to define themselves as different from KSA in some important regard, or else a logic might ensue that all of the Arabian peninsula ought to be unified (and dominate the damned Shiites). What's UAE's claim to distinctness? Qatar's?

*) KSA is engaged in a hot war in Yemen. I don't think anything can be understood properly without taking this war into account.
 
Is Qatar getting too big for its boots?

Is it a case of a band of wankers annoyed because one of the wankers isn't being wanky in the right way?

Does this put the World Cup in Qatar at risk (please, please, pleeeeease!)?
 
Here is a piece from The Atlantic which gives a brief history of some of the issues that have caused contention between Qatar and its neighbours.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/06/qatar-gcc-saudi-arabia-yemen-bahrain/529227/

Whatever caused the events of the last few days seems to be a "straw that broke the camel's back" type of thing.

The linked article offered this:

The current crisis has, therefore, been building for years. This time, it may have been triggered by a complex prisoner swap that Qatar negotiated in April to release 26 members of a Qatari hunting party, including many members of the Qatari ruling family, who had been taken hostage in Iraq in December 2015. The group had been held by Kitaeb Hezbollah, a Shia militia with links to Iran, and Qatar reportedly negotiated with Iran, Hezbollah, and the Syrian rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra to secure their release.
Allegations that Qatar may have paid up to $500 million for the prisoner exchange caused fury in regional capitals, including Baghdad, where Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi claimed that the deal had been done without Iraqi government involvement or approval. While the exact details of the agreement remain unclear, the suggestion that such large sums of money had been paid to violent non-state actors in Iraq, with the tacit connivance of Iran, reinforced perceptions in other Gulf capitals that Qatar’s proximity to such groups posed a threat to regional stability and security.
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As TriangleMan said, there are a lot of rumors floating around. Maybe the above is just another one.
 
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Oystein said:
*) Kuwait and Oman so far have not joined KSA and UAE. Why not?
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I don't know about Kuwait but I figure Oman's decision not to join this action goes to their general neutrality. Al Jazeera has reported that the Emir of Kuwait is calling for calm.

One other reason may be that the UAE were also denigrating Kuwait.

*) UAE has amiable ties with Iran in some areas, non-oil trade being quite significant. This cannot just be a move against Iran
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True. It's most likely a move against Qatar, probably because of the soft power their media provides. At the moment Iran stands to benefit quite well from all this.
 
Kuwait is always seen as a calming influence due to the different ruling structure. It is not unusual for them to stay on the fringes as is the same with Oman.

This is going back to 2014 issues and the fact that Qatar continue to play the game of many faces. Due to major business dealings with Iran they don't want to completely back off and be seen to be supporting the USA-GCC anti Iran coalition.

AlJazeera did very publicly insult the Saudi king. Those kind of sleights are generally taken very badly over here. Seems like it was the final straw (or excuse).

http://ifpnews.com/exclusive/al-jazeera-removes-controversial-cartoon-outraged-saudis/
 
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No updates on whether the Qatar gas supplies to Abu Dhabi and Oman will be cut off. That could cause serious issues here
 
The Beeb are reporting that it was the billion dollar ransom payment (of the royal family members) to jihadists that was the final straw. It looks as though there may have been multiple final straws!
 
Ex pats I know reporting that wire transfers have been blocked so they cannot get their money out.
 
funk de fino said:
Ex pats I know reporting that wire transfers have been blocked so they cannot get their money out.
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That's rather severe, all things included. The GCC nations are really after something this time around. On the upside it could indicate the GCC nations aren't trying to destroy Qatar, just force it into something. Had they left this channel open, the run on the banks could cause major havoc, above and beyond what country is going through already.

McHrozni
 
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Worst of all I have had to change my TV subscription as BEIN sports is blocked. The end is nigh.....
 
McHrozni said:
That's rather severe, all things included. The GCC nations are really after something this time around. On the upside it could indicate the GCC nations aren't trying to destroy Qatar, just force it into something. Had they left this channel open, the run on the banks could cause major havoc, above and beyond what country is going through already.

McHrozni
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I think they want a change in leadership and have someone in mind to step in.
 
I find it difficult to think that this is straw/camel thing: There is a coalition of several countries acting quite suddenly and synchronously. Each would have their camel-neck moment at some different point, as their interests and positions aren't equal.

There is either one single and very large issue that happened or was discovered very recently, or someone bullied most of them into bullying Qatar. Is KSA rich and strong enough to bully Egypt?
 
I'm seeing a lot of newspapers (such as the Guardian and the Telegraph) mentioned cleared out shelves and panic buying. Specifically at one Carrefour at City Centre Mall. They all mention "queues up to 25 people deep" so I'm assuming that they are all sourcing one article.

Everything is fine, the stores have plenty of food and bottled water. I looked at a few places last night and didn't see any cleared out shelves (expect in one there wasn't much meat, a bit strange to hoard something perishable but whatever). Tonight I went to that specific Carrefour and, no surprise, plenty of food there as well.

Otherwise rumours are swirling around but the recent Trump tweets give weight to that this blockade of Qatar had been planned for a while.

I suspect the long-term plan was: build a narrative in the Western Media that Qatar is a major funder of [groups or countries you don't like] and only Qatar. If that narrative can take hold then the Saudi/UAE coalition can take action and hopefully have the West's support in doing it since they are stopping that "bad" country.

Except the Al-Otaiba emails got leaked and it exposed the plot. By this point Saudi/UAE/Egypt had Trump's okay (not sure to what extent he even cared if there was any real evidence) so they decided to pull the trigger now, probably earlier then they wanted. They've now canvassed other countries to back them, but so far they got Eastern Libya, Maldives, and Mauritius. I don't think that was the huge backing they were hoping to have.

This of course is dependent on whether you think the Al-Otaiba emails are genuine, but the current actions would at least give them some credibility.

Kuwait (and one news source says France as well) are now mediating the dispute.
 
Oystein said:
There is either one single and very large issue that happened or was discovered very recently, or someone bullied most of them into bullying Qatar. Is KSA rich and strong enough to bully Egypt?
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The current Egyptian Government does not like Qatar. Qatar avidly supported the Muslim Brotherhood, the previous Government that Sisi overthrew to take over Egypt. The current Government still arrests and imprisons Al-Jazeera journalists.

Saudi and UAE backed Sisi when he took over.

No bullying required. No shock at all here that Egypt joined the blockade.
 
Latest news (BREAKING!!!) is that the conflict is all or mostly due to a false story created by the Russians. This not coming from PDJT, I might actually believe it.
 
The Qatar scandal is getting complicated. Needs it's own thread.

10 May: Trump openly meets with Russians in the Oval Office.

21 May: Trump visits Saudi Arabia.

Here's where it gets weird:

23 May: US suspects Russian hackers planted fake news behind Qatar crisis

05 Jun: Gulf states cut ties with Qatar (based on fake news).

And maybe or maybe not connected because Occam's Razor suggests this was just Trump being ignorant or due to his personality disorder.

06 Jun: Trump takes credit for Gulf nations' move against Qatar, home of the largest regional US military base.

So in this unfolding story Trump could be a patsy, or he could be purposefully trying to distract. Getting credit as an actual reward is so unlikely as to be crossed off the list, thus: patsy.
 
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