Qatar and the Arab Spring

Why Was Muammar Qadhafi Really Removed?

“…146 A number of commentators, meanwhile, seemed willing to buy into this idea that Qatar was somehow a free agent, with arguments being made that Qatar had chosen to "make a stand over Libya," that its successes marked "a high-water mark of Qatari influence," and that the campaign allowed Qatar to "demonstrate an alignment of values with the international community." 147 More likely, of course, was that the home of CENTCOM and other important Western military assets was simply the proxy of choice to deploy Arab soldiers who would ensure rebel units capitalized quickly on the results of NATO air strikes. Indeed, at one point the Qatari armed forces' chief of staff openly stated that his troops were the "link" between NATO and the rebels.…”

“…80 After a lengthy investigation, the director of the International Crisis Group's North Africa project concluded that Al-Jazeera's stories of the strafing of protestors were indeed untrue. 81 Apart from some accounts of Serbian guns being used by regime forces, there was little mention in the media of the weapons its thugs were supposed to be using, and certainly no references to the millions of dollars' worth of British and other European arms and crowd-control equipment that had been sold to Libya up until a few months earlier. 82 There were, however, myriad reports being filed that claimed the regime was clinging to power because it was deploying thousands of dark-skinned mercenaries from Mali, Niger and Chad.…”

“…Described as "instrumental" in engineering the old regime's suspension from the Arab League, Qatar also began to campaign publicly and heavily for NATO strikes and an enforced no-fly zone over Libya. 115 In parallel, a new Qatar-based "Libya TV" was also set up. Supposedly funded by unnamed "Libyan expatriate businessmen," it broadcast almost unrelenting criticism of the Qadhafi regime while at the same time throwing its full support behind the NATO-friendly NTC.…”

Las relaciones en el golfo después de la “primavera árabe” y su impacto en la región

“…De acuerdo con la lectura de Ulrichsen (2014), la salida del emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani y de su primer ministro, Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani ("los arquitectos de una estrategia de internacionalización agresiva" [2014, p. 13]) estuvo acompañada por algunos actos que daban la idea de que Doha estaba intentando moderarse. No obstante, el discurso de acceso al poder del nuevo emir presentó algunas ambivalencias.…”

“…Así, mientras Qatar dio apoyo a la oposición vinculada con los HM, Arabia Saudita sostuvo a aquella formada por el Ejército Sirio Libre y grupos salafistas (Ulrichsen, 2014). Si Doha fue el primer país en retirar su embajador de Damasco y enviar dinero y armas a grupos opositores a través de la frontera de Turquía, en el año 2013 fue sobrepasado en este aspecto por Riad que comenzó a financiar y a armar a la oposición no vinculada con los HM a través de Jordania (Khalaf y Fielding Smith, 2013).…”