Qatar diplomatic fine line survives, even after Iranian attacks

Every parent knows the situation. A child comes home from school and tells you about the class bully who keeps picking on them. The usual parental response is simple: “Sweetheart, just ignore him. Smile, keep walking, and don't give him a reason to bother you. Sooner or later, he'll find another target.“

For decades, Qatar took that advice further than anyone else. Recognising its strategic weakness compared with its much stronger neighbour, the small emirate adopted a strategy aimed at reducing tensions with Iran, while protecting its own security. Instead of confronting Tehran, Qatar chose to live alongside it. As part of that strategy, it built deep political and economic ties with the Islamic Republic, hoping to reduce Tehran's incentive to disrupt the regional order. At the same time, it strengthened its strategic partnership with the United States, believing that when the moment of truth came, the world's strongest military power would protect it from external threats.

For decades, Tehran and Doha maintained good neighbourly relations without ever becoming besties. Their coordination on a range of regional issues reinforced Qatar's belief that its strategy toward Iran was working. For years, everything seemed to confirm that belief, but that is the deceptive nature of foreign policy. Any foreign policy. You can never know for certain whether a strategy is truly working. The only thing you can know for sure is when it fails.

For Qatar, that moment came when Iran attacked its territory. It is hard to overstate the shock felt by Qatar's leadership. Although Iran insisted that the strikes targeted American assets rather than Qatar itself, the facts were impossible to ignore. Iran had violated Qatar's sovereignty and exposed just how vulnerable the small emirate really was. It was no coincidence that Qatar's prime minister used unusually strong language, saying that he felt “a deep sense of betrayal.”