IT is an ironic twist of fate that Qatar’s attempts to destabilise the region have unwittingly united its Arab neighbours.
A boycott initiated by Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE in June was a response to Doha’s reckless foreign policy, which backfired and brought together like-minded nations who decided enough was enough.
Qatari authorities had ambitions of a more prominent role in the Middle East, but at the expense of their neighbours.
It was therefore only a matter of time before its foreign interventions and conspiracies provoked a meaningful response.
How long did Doha think it could get away with backing terrorist groups like Saraya Al Ashtar (Al Ashtar Brigades) or the February 14 Coalition in Bahrain, the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt, Houthis in Yemen, the Benghazi Defence Brigade in Libya or Islamic State and Al Qaeda in Iraq, Syria and Somalia?
Such policies have stoked unrest and contributed to the destruction of countries like Syria, Libya and Yemen, while resulting in deaths and injuries among police and civilians in Bahrain, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
There is abundant evidence that Qatar has been supporting some of the region’s most unsavoury elements for some time.
It was only this month that images surfaced of cheques worth BD1 million, written by a Qatari businessman and supplied to a terrorist cell in Bahrain, which killed two policemen in a 2015 attack.
Bahrain’s Interior Minister Lieutenant General Shaikh Rashid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa recently spelled out ways in which Doha had sought to undermine Bahrain’s security, describing how it fomented unrest in 2011 and supported efforts to overthrow the government here, partly through the Qatar-funded Al Jazeera news network.
He also accused Qatar of hindering construction of a causeway linking it to Bahrain, failing to contribute its share of a GCC support programme, refusing to sell gas to Bahrain and even forging documents to support its claims of ownership of the Hawar Islands in 2001.
In addition, he said Qatar was behind an assassination attempt in Saudi Arabia and a coup plot in the UAE.
Then there were last week’s stunning revelations that the former Qatari Prime Minister was in contact with Shaikh Ali Salman, the leader of the now-dissolved Al Wefaq National Islamic Society and a main opposition protagonist during 2011 unrest in Bahrain.
The fact is that Qatar has allied itself with the Muslim Brotherhood and others seeking to create chaos and weaken regional governments, in the hope of delivering countries to extremists on a silver plate.
So far Qatar has been unable to come up with any kind of response that could justify its behaviour, which saw it strike clandestine deals with the enemies of its allies.
Even US President Donald Trump criticised Doha for funding terrorism at a “high level” in June.
The lack of international support for Qatar in the face of this collective action tells its own story.
Yet it is testament to the patience of countries like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE that even now they are prepared to welcome Qatar back into the fold – as long as it agrees to their demands.