Saudi Arabia and Qatar in a Time of Revolution

By Bernard Haykel

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SUMMARY

The Arab Spring represents a set of challenges the likes of which have not been seen in the Arab world for a half century or more. Shifts underway in the Levant and North Africa have a profound effect on perceptions of governance in the Gulf, and those shifts are a potential source of threat to the GCC states’ stability. In response, Qatar has been active, building on confidence in its domestic support and its conviction that it has nothing to fear from actors like the Muslim Brotherhood. Saudi Arabia has been considerably more cautious, reflecting its own diverse internal politics and the leadership’s distrust of sweeping change. Both Qatar and Saudi Arabia seek to use their wealth as an instrument of their foreign policy, shaping the external environment in order to secure their internal one. So far, they are succeeding.

The Arab Spring uprisings came as a surprise to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. Its leaders have reacted to these events in diverse ways, but in keeping with their personalistic and somewhat idiosyncratic style of rule. At the most general level, these states have all tried to keep the forces of revolutionary change at bay from their own societies. They have sought to maintain the domestic status quo—that is, political dominance over their own people—and toward this end have expended considerable financial resources as well as coercive power. Away from the national scene, however—in North Africa, Egypt, and Syria—the leaders of Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been more proactive in the pursuit of revolutionary change. Interestingly, they do not regard their conservative policies at home as contradicting their more radical policies for political reform and change in the broader region, nor do they think that their support for reform elsewhere might embolden domestic opposition to their autocratic rule. It is remarkable that these monarchic regimes—long identified as embodying the forces of stability in the Arab world—have now become active agents of political change in countries like Egypt and Syria, which had themselves once been beacons of progressive and revolutionary transformation.

This paper looks at how the two most active members of the GCC, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, have responded to the Arab Spring. The two countries have collaborated on some fronts and diverged on others. So, for example, they both support the preservation of the monarchy in Bahrain and seek to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. During the uprising in Yemen, Saudi Arabia took the lead in devising a political transition agreement that allowed President Ali Abdullah Saleh to give up office, whereas Qatar was wholly absent from the scene, having failed earlier at resolving a dispute between different belligerent Yemenis.[1] In Tunisia and then in Libya, Qatar was actively engaged in the power transitions while Saudi Arabia adopted a more passive or ambivalent role. Having nurtured a long-standing hostility to forces of revolutionary change, Riyadh was unnerved by the toppling of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, although it felt no remorse at Muammar el-Qaddafi’s demise because of the latter’s active antagonism to the rule of the Al Saud family. Saudi Arabia appears to have done little by way of a concerted policy in either country during the uprisings, and it is now assessing which local forces are worth cultivating.

In the midst of all this, it bears remembering that Qatar and Saudi Arabia have a history of mutual antagonism, and this goes some way toward explaining their policy differences. One major policy difference concerns their relations with the Muslim Brotherhood: Doha systematically favors the Brotherhood, whereas Riyadh actively shuns and resists its rising influence. More broadly, Qatar and Saudi Arabia pursue different foreign policy goals. Qatar is often described as adopting a strategy of making itself valuable, if not indispensable, to multiple regional and international actors. Along these lines, Doha’s foreign policy successes constitute a “branding” strategy that seeks to showcase Qatar as uniquely able to influence Arab and regional politics, well above what might be expected based on its relatively small size. By contrast, Saudi Arabia has a more traditional outlook and strategy. It seeks to remain influential in regional politics and to cultivate traditional allies to keep upstarts, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, at bay.

AN OPPORTUNITY FOR QATAR

Qatar has led the charge to topple incumbent authoritarian Arab regimes from Tunisia to Syria, and has been active on a variety of fronts, providing media and propaganda support, offering financial and military aid, and mediating the disputes among various rebel groups. Saudi Arabia has also pursued an activist policy but has been more discreet about its engagements and patronage, in keeping with its low-key style. The other members of the GCC—Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Oman—have focused more on their internal situations.[2] Several face serious threats, such as the uprising in Bahrain and the tensions between parliament and the royal family in Kuwait.

Qatar has led the charge to topple incumbent authoritarian Arab regimes from Tunisia to Syria.

Of all the GCC countries, Qatar was best placed to take advantage of the Arab Spring uprisings. Its relatively young leadership has long sought a more prominent position in regional politics. A first step toward this position took place in 1996 with the establishment of the pan-Arab television station Al Jazeera. This station’s mainly Levantine and Egyptian editors and journalists, whose political convictions are either Islamist in the vein of the Muslim Brotherhood or Arab nationalist, has offered the Arab public refreshingly open coverage and debate on controversial subjects such as corruption, nepotism, and the lack of freedom in the Arab world. Its coverage, however, invariably focuses on other countries, and political issues within Qatar either are not mentioned or are discussed in laudatory terms. In addition to supporting this politically influential media outlet, the Qatari government has taken a second step toward prominence: seeking to resolve political tensions throughout the region. Specifically, it was involved in mediating the sectarian political tensions between the Sunnis and Shi‘ites of Lebanon in 2008, the war in Sudan between the government in Khartoum and the Darfur rebels in 2009, and the war in Yemen between the Houthi rebels and the government of former President Saleh in 2010. Qatar’s record of success in these attempts has been mixed despite the expenditure of considerable sums of money.

Clearly, Qatar is a country in search of a regional role, and the Arab Spring has presented the perfect opportunity to catapult it into a more prominent position. Qatar was particularly well placed because of its long-standing good relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, branches of which (in Tunisia, Egypt, and lately Syria) are playing leading roles in the unfolding events. Qatar has sponsored and given asylum to the Muslim Brothers since the 1950s and 1960s, when many fled Egypt to escape Gamal Abd al-Nasser’s repression.[3] The Brotherhood has not had a conflictual relationship with the Qatari regime (as it has had with Saudi Arabia and the UAE) because it has never threatened the regime’s legitimacy—for example, by forming a cadre of Qatari Brothers critical of the regime’s policies.[4] Instead, a close, even symbiotic, relationship exists between the Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar: as will be described below, Doha provides the Brotherhood with significant financial and political support, while the Brotherhood directs its energies outward and acts as a conduit for projecting Qatar’s influence into the region.

A THREAT FOR SAUDI ARABIA

If the Qatari leadership seized on the Arab Spring as an opportunity, for the Saudi leadership it was a shock. It was not that King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud felt sympathy for President Ben Ali of Tunisia and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, who were toppled in early 2011. What was disturbing was how the leaders were deposed: mass mobilization of people in the streets, with the United States unwilling to offer unequivocal support to long-standing allies. There was genuine concern in Riyadh that the wave of revolts was unstoppable and that its domino effect would topple well-entrenched regimes in quick succession. The threat became immediate on February 14, 2011, when, on the heels of Mubarak’s ouster in Cairo, the revolt started in neighboring Bahrain. Saudi Arabia’s first priority became staving off the threat of an uprising within its own society—ominously being advocated on a Facebook page for March 11, 2011—and it began by sending approximately 1,000 troops to Bahrain to help extinguish the uprising there.[5]

On the domestic front, the Saudis quickly adopted the tried and tested strategy of buying social peace through co-optation of the population with promises of more public sector jobs (reportedly 300,000 by January 2012),[6] higher salaries, and other financial inducements. The cost of these handouts rose to many tens of billions of U.S. dollars, a figure that does not include some $500 billion that had already been promised for various infrastructure development projects before the Arab Spring.[7] Because of the relatively elevated price of oil since 2004 (which led to the accumulation of massive financial reserves), Riyadh felt that it could afford this policy of state benevolence. But it is clearly not sustainable in the long run, because the Saudi population is large, at 27 million (the other GCC states are all much smaller), its fertility rate is high, and there are limits to how many public sector jobs can be created, especially if the price of oil were to fall and persistent budgetary deficits were to ensue.[8] Furthermore, Saudis are connected to the Internet and to online social networks in high proportions, particularly Twitter,[9] and their political discussions are open and often highly critical of the prevailing political and social order. And while the political consequences of social networks remain uncertain, the Saudi government no longer has a monopoly over information dissemination, and members of the royal family have lost the reverence they once enjoyed.

There was genuine concern in Riyadh that the wave of revolts was unstoppable and that its domino effect would topple well-entrenched regimes in quick succession.

Spending money is not the only way that Saudi Arabia has sought to block the political winds of change and reform. Riyadh has also made a display of the coercive power of its security and intelligence services and issued dire warnings to the population about the disruptive and illegal nature of public demonstrations. The Saudi Council of Senior Scholars issued a fatwa that declared all public protests illegal in Islam.[10] In addition, the government has engaged in punitive measures against several reform-minded religious scholars and activists who dared criticize the political system on the Internet. Some have been arrested, and others have been threatened, censored, or had their freedom of travel restricted. The government has also used Islamists to intimidate reform- and liberal-minded individuals; Sahwa-affiliated religious figures, for example, have joined the chorus of those denouncing protests as un-Islamic.[11]

Shi‘ites have also mobilized on numerous occasions and demonstrated their ire at the systematic discrimination they face. The Shi‘ites have had to endure police brutality and arrest, and one of their prominent leaders, Nimr al-Nimr, was shot in July 2012. In terms of realpolitik, Shi‘ite political agitation offers Riyadh an opportunity to rally its Sunni base against a traditional enemy that is easy to identify and suppress. Thus the targeting of Shi‘ites presents an example of sectarian politics working in favor of the regime.

THE SAUDIS IN BAHRAIN AND YEMEN

In Bahrain, too, the Saudi regime exploited sectarian politics to strengthen itself. On February 14, 2011, the Saudi leadership sent a message to the Sunni minority regime in Manama that no political concessions were to be made to the majority Shi‘ites. Public demonstrations were deemed an unacceptable method for airing political grievances, let alone acquiring more power. To make matters absolutely clear, the Saudis sent a military force into Bahrain to express Riyadh’s unequivocal support for the Al Khalifa dynasty. The troubles in Bahrain, however, were not altogether unwelcome in Riyadh. The sectarian nature of the conflict, with a Shi‘ite majority clamoring for more political and economic rights, presented Riyadh with a felicitous opportunity: the protests fit well with a long-standing paradigm of conflict between Sunnis and Shi‘ites and have enabled Riyadh to rally its own supporters against a traditional enemy.

The GCC countries have all followed Riyadh’s lead with respect to Bahrain. The consensus is that no popular uprising in the Gulf can be allowed to succeed, that no concessions will be made because of public protests, and that under no circumstances are Shi‘ites to be accorded greater influence. For the Saudis, a Shi‘ite-led Bahrain would likely become another bastion from which Iran could exert its power, following on the example of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Even Qatar’s Al Jazeera Arabic service has given short shrift to the demands and actions of Bahrain’s

Shi‘ite activists, in glaring contrast to its endless trumpeting of the demands of the demonstrators (and rebels) in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Syria for freedom from oppression and misrule. The upshot of this policy is likely to be further radicalization of the Shi‘ites of Bahrain, and there is some evidence of this as the moderate Shi‘ite coalition, al-Wifaq, gives way to more extreme groups.

The protests [in Bahrain] fit well with a long-standing paradigm of conflict between Sunnis and Shi‘ites and have enabled Riyadh to rally its own supporters against a traditional enemy.

In nearby Yemen, as in Bahrain, the Saudis have led the GCC response to the events of the Arab Spring.[12] Riyadh’s top priority in Yemen has been to end the uprising that erupted in 2011 and the chaos that it precipitated. Events in Yemen split the country’s established leadership structure, with President Saleh on one side and the Ahmar tribal family and General Ali Muhsin on the other. Saudi Arabia has always sought to maintain strong patronage links and influence with the different Yemeni political and tribal actors, and the risk of Yemen disintegrating into civil war posed a real threat that needed to be averted. The Saudis therefore sponsored a GCC agreement between the principal Yemeni actors whereby President Saleh would cede rule to his vice president, Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi, and in return be spared judicial prosecution and seizure of assets. This transfer of power took place in February 2012, and since then President Hadi has slowly chipped away at Saleh’s power base while also trying to reshape Yemen’s armed services and government institutions.

But the GCC-backed agreement does not address let alone help resolve many of Yemen’s profound political and structural problems. The Yemeni youth who demonstrated for months and suffered repeated attacks from Saleh’s forces have been effectively sidelined, and their demands for political reform and accountability have not been met. In addition, the main political actors from the Saleh period are still present and vying for power; the central government remains weak; a secessionist movement continues to strengthen in the south; al Qaeda fighters are still present and attacking government forces; several northern provinces are dominated by a rebel movement under the leadership of a Shi‘ite named Abd al-Malik al-Houthi; water and oil resources are depleting at an alarming rate; and economic underdevelopment, including severe malnutrition, is persistent.

The present Saudi policy toward Yemen does not address seriously any of these problems, though for that matter neither does U.S. policy, which is concerned primarily with fighting al Qaeda in the country. Yemen’s problems are deeply structural, and Saudi Arabia does not have a ready solution for them.[13] Because of this, the Saudi approach has consisted primarily in offering payments to the various Yemeni political actors, including the central government, in an effort to keep chaos from enveloping the country. Riyadh handles Yemen, much as it does Bahrain, as if it were a domestic territory, with the Ministry of the Interior in charge of managing policy toward both countries. Moreover, the Saudi Ministry of Finance allegedly allocates billions of dollars each year for these two countries.[14]

SYRIA, IRAN, AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

In Syria, where the events of the Arab Spring devolved into civil war, Saudi Arabia is waging a proxy war against Iran. With the possible exception of Oman, the GCC countries agree that Iran represents a mortal enemy and is to be resisted on all fronts. Saudi Arabia in particular views the loss of Iraq to Shi‘ite rulers who are beholden to, if not manipulated by, Iran as a severe strategic blow to Gulf countries’ position in the region. Saudi leaders, and other GCC leaders for that matter, see the United States as having handed Iraq to Iran on a platter. (They see this not so much as perfidy as a signal mark of political naiveté.) The degree of Saudi animosity toward both Iran and Iraq can be gleaned from the fact that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has never been met or received by any high-ranking Saudi official and that the Saudis have not reopened their embassy in Baghdad.

And yet, Saudi Arabia deeply fears that a change in the government in Damascus could bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power. The Saudis are refusing to back the Brotherhood and have chosen instead to back more secular forces, mainly using Jordan as a base of operations. It remains unclear whether the Saudis will also support their traditional protégés, the Salafis, in the conflict in Syria. The problem with the Salafis is that, in their jihadi incarnation, they have inevitably turned against the Saudi royal family, both because the family is allied with the United States and because it is considered insufficiently Islamic in its methods of rule. In other words, the Salafis represent the threat of blowback—in the same way that the once-Saudi-backed Afghan-Arabs ended up becoming al Qaeda—whereas the Brotherhood is unreliable and a potential threat to the legitimacy and rule of the Al Saud.

Qatar, too, would like to end the rule of the Assad clan but, interestingly, it does not agree with Saudi Arabia on which of the Syrian opposition forces to back. Because of Qatar’s long-standing relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, Doha fully supports the Brotherhood’s Syrian activists and forces. Qatar’s support is coordinated with that of Turkey, whose ruling party, the AKP, is also sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria and elsewhere in the Arab world.

Saudi leaders, and other GCC leaders for that matter, see the United States as having handed Iraq to Iran on a platter.

Qatar has also shown a marked willingness to support jihadi groups in Syria, arguing that the important thing is to end the Assad regime as swiftly as possible. Speaking in Manama in December 2012, Qatari Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah hinted at such support, saying, “I am very much against excluding anyone at this stage, or bracketing them as terrorists, or bracketing them as al Qaeda . . . We should bring them all together, we should treat them all equally, and we should work on them to change their ideology.”[15]

The Brotherhood’s long-established and well-entrenched networks make it possible for Qatar to project its influence throughout the region. This can be seen in Tunisia, where Ennahda, the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, is closely allied to and sponsored by Qatar. The same is true for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which is close to Qatar’s leadership as well as to Qatar-based Islamic scholars like Yusuf al-Qaradawi. But perhaps Qatar’s greatest success in this regard has been its successful courting of Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Brotherhood, which has trimmed its ties to Damascus and Iran and moved into Doha’s orbit. In return, Hamas in Gaza has received over $400 million in Qatari aid as well as political support and a base in Doha from which its leadership can operate.[16]

The Saudis are not pleased by the rise to power of the Brotherhood anywhere. There are historical as well as practical reasons for this animosity. Riyadh will never forgive the Muslim Brotherhood for what it considers to be a dual betrayal. First, members of the Brotherhood were welcomed and employed in the Kingdom during Gamal Abd al-Nasser’s and Hafiz al-Assad’s brutal and successive repression of the movement. But the Brothers responded by educating and mobilizing two generations of radicalized Saudi subjects, called the Sahwis, who sought to end Saudi rule. Second, the Brotherhood betrayed the Saudis by siding with Saddam Hussein in 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait. One practical reason for this betrayal is that the Brotherhood competes ideologically on the same terrain as the Saudi state, namely the politics of Islam. Saudi Arabia’s legitimacy derives in good measure from its claim to uphold strict Islamic Sunni orthodoxy and to propagate the faith and its interests throughout the world. The Muslim Brotherhood makes similar claims, though its interpretation of the faith is often at variance with Riyadh’s on matters of both principle and procedure—this competition can be gleaned from the differences between the Salafis, who are closer to the Saudi version, and the Muslim Brotherhood wherever the two movements compete (Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, etc.). The Brotherhood, moreover, has a strictly hierarchical, secretive, transnational, and authoritarian power structure that the Saudis neither trust nor can control. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Muslim Brotherhood represents the only clandestine and organized political force in Saudi society, and therefore has the wherewithal to mobilize against the regime. The Saudi leadership sees the Brothers as fundamentally unprincipled opportunists, driven by the desire for power at any cost—and therefore a significant threat to the regime.

EGYPT AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

Saudi leaders’ misgivings about the Muslim Brotherhood are also evident in their response to events in Egypt, where the Brotherhood has gained power. While Qatar has warmly welcomed President Mohamed Morsi,[17] Riyadh has viewed the ascent of the Muslim Brotherhood with trepidation. The Brotherhood in command of Egypt represents a major rupture with the past and a source of unpredictability. The first foreign trip Morsi made was to Saudi Arabia to assure the leadership there that the new Egypt would not be a threat. But would this Egypt maintain the Saudi- and U.S.-led policies and posture of the Mubarak era, or would it seek to assert a more independent role in the region as the putative leader of the Arab world (as in the past)? Egypt’s policy toward Iran would be the first test of Morsi’s promise, and the policy could be gauged in two ways: whether Cairo would reopen its embassy in Tehran (closed since the 1979 revolution), and what course of action Cairo would adopt in Syria and Bahrain. On all these fronts, Egypt has thus far maintained a Saudi-friendly policy. The Egyptian Brotherhood has been notably anti-Iranian (and anti-Shi‘ite) because of Iranian support for the regime in Damascus, which is persecuting the Sunnis in Syria, but also because Egypt has a desperate need for financial support from the Gulf, given the parlous state of its economy.

But perhaps Qatar’s greatest success in this regard has been its successful courting of Hamas...which has trimmed its ties to Damascus and Iran and moved into Doha’s orbit.

Whatever the case, it is certain that both the Saudis and the Qataris have significant leverage over Egypt and countries like Tunisia and a future liberated Syria, not only because the Saudis and the Qataris can play a role in supporting these countries’ weak economies, but also because they have deep influence with their various political actors.[18] This can be gleaned from Qatar’s recently announced decision to double its aid to Egypt with a new gift of $2.5 billion.[19] The Saudis have yet to deliver on their financial commitment to Egypt. Going forward, it will be important to see whether the different policies of the Qataris and the Saudis, as well as the competition between them, will translate into local tensions between their respective clients. Will the Salafis in Egypt, for example, break with the Brotherhood because of Gulf-based politics? Will the opposition in Syria remain divided and weak because the Saudis and Qataris cannot agree to unite on whom to support? Or will the two seek to promote a broader compromise, as they have in Yemen and Lebanon in the past?

CONCLUSION

The Arab Spring uprisings have presented Saudi Arabia and Qatar with opportunities and challenges. In keeping with the styles and ambitions of their respective leaders, the latter has been more entrepreneurial and vigorous, while the former has been more tentative and circumspect. Qatar’s population is small and easy to control, whereas Saudi Arabia’s is big and diverse, and its leadership stands to lose a lot more from the winds of revolutionary change than the ruler in Qatar. Qatar adopted more modest domestic policies in response to the Arab Spring: vague promises of legislative elections to be held in 2013 and the arrest of four individuals for dissent, one of them for writing a poem which allegedly criticized the emir.[20] In Saudi Arabia, by contrast, the financial expenditure and repressive efforts have been very significant indeed, as outlined above.

Further, the Qataris have managed to use their foreign policies as a way to enhance their domestic success. By projecting Qatar’s influence overseas, even at considerable financial cost, Qatar’s leaders have been able to leverage this influence into greater legitimacy at home. Perceived successes abroad—securing the football World Cup in 2022 or sponsoring Hamas and the Syrian opposition—redound to the emir’s credit domestically because they make Qatar appear important and enhance the “Qatar brand.” The Saudis are not similarly placed, nor do their foreign policies translate so readily into domestic popularity.

Finally, responses to the Arab Spring have highlighted the long-standing rivalry between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, with Doha seeing Riyadh as a meddlesome and overbearing big brother, and Riyadh perceiving Doha as an upstart—one whose overly ambitious policies and claims imply that it is acting as an agent on behalf of some other regional or international power.

Despite competition, however, the policies of Qatar and Saudi Arabia have generally been consonant. One can see this in their strategies toward Bahrain, Yemen, or even Iran. They differ most glaringly when it comes to the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Saudis distrust and which the Qataris embrace.

Where the two sides agree is that the Arab Spring represents a set of challenges the likes of which have not been seen in the Arab world for a half century or more. Shifts underway in the Levant and North Africa have a profound effect on perceptions of governance in the Gulf, and those shifts are a potential source of imminent threat. Qatar has been an agile provocateur, building on confidence in its domestic support and its conviction that it has nothing to fear from the Muslim Brotherhood. Saudi Arabia has been considerably more cautious, reflecting its own diverse internal politics and the leadership’s distrust of sweeping change. While their tactics differ, their strategy seems unified. They seek to use their wealth as an instrument of their foreign policy, shaping the external environment in order to secure their internal one. So far, they are succeeding.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bernard Haykel is professor of Near Eastern studies and director of the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia at Princeton University. He also directs the university’s Oil, Energy and the Middle East Project. He was previously professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern history at New York University. His present research and writing focuses on the history and politics of Islamism in the Arabian peninsula, and he has a forthcoming book on the history of the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia from the 1950s to the present. He is also co-editor of Complexity and Change in Saudi Arabia (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2013). Dr. Haykel holds a doctorate in Islamic Studies from Oxford University.

GULF ANALYSIS PAPERS

In conjunction with its Gulf Roundtable series, the CSIS Middle East Program issues periodic policy papers addressing key economic and security issues in the Gulf region. Launched in April 2007, the Gulf Roundtable series convenes monthly and assembles a diverse group of regional experts, policymakers, academics, and business leaders seeking to build a greater understanding of the complexities of the region and identify opportunities for constructive U.S. engagement. Topics for discussion include the role of Islamist movements in politics, the war on terror, democratization and the limits of civil society, the strategic importance of Gulf energy, media trends, trade liberalization, and prospects for regional integration. The roundtable defines the Gulf as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran and is made possible in part through the generous support of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates. ■

NOTES

1. “Qatar pulls out of Gulf’s Yemen mediation,” Middle East Online, May 13, 2011, http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=46106.

2. Despite its focus on internal threats, the UAE sent 500 troops to Bahrain under the Peninsula Shield force and contributed F-16 and Mirage fighter jets to NATO’s campaign in Libya. “Qatar has sent troops to Bahrain,” AFP, March 18, 2011, http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/7988/World/Region/Qatar-has-sent-troops-to-Bahrain.aspx; “UAE commits 12 planes to Libya despite Bahrain,” AFP, March 25, 2011, http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/03/25/142959.html.

3. The most famous Muslim Brothers who have been hosted in Qatar are the tele-Islamist Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Abd al-Aziz al-Sattar, Ahmad al-`Assal and Kamal Naji. See `Abd al-`Aziz Al Mahmud, “Al-Ikhwan al-muslimun fi Qatar… man hum?” https://www.gulfpolicies.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=652:2012-01-15-19-35-21&catid=51:2011-04-09-07-47-31&Itemid=364.

4. The UAE has been particularly antagonistic toward the Muslim Brotherhood, whose local movement is called al-Islah. See Sultan Al Qassemi, “The Brothers and the Gulf,” Foreign Policy, December 14, 2012, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/12/14/Muslim_Brotherhood_Gulf_UAE_Qassemi?page=full.

5. Ethan Bronner and Michael Slackman, “Saudi Troops Enter Bahrain to Put Down Unrest,” New York Times, March 14, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/middleeast/15bahrain.html?pagewanted=all.

6. Mourad Haroutunian, “Saudi Arabia Creates 300,000 Jobs Since June, Eqtisadiah Says,” Bloomberg, January 23, 2012, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-28/saudi-arabia-creates-300-000-jobs-since-june-eqtisadiah-says.html.

7. David George-Cosh, “Saudi Arabia to invest $500bn for bright future,” The National, November 9, 2010, http://www.thenational.ae/business/economy/saudi-arabia-to-invest-500bn-for-bright-future.

8. It is variously asserted that the budgetary break-even price of oil has risen from $60 per barrel before the Arab Spring to closer to $85 today. See Michael Peel and Javier Blas, “Saudi Budget Could Require High Oil Price,” Financial Times, March 31, 2011, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/87d60044-5bbb-11e0-b8e7-00144feab49a.html#axzz2KuOboynK; Angus McDowall, “Mideast Money—fiscal muscle gives Saudis oil market options,” Reuters, February 6, 2013, http://www.cnbc.com/id/100438773/MIDEAST_MONEYFiscal_muscle_gives_Saudis_oil_market_options.

9. “Social Media in the Arab World: Influencing Societal and Cultural Change?” Arab Social Media Report 2, no. 1 (July 2012): 16–17, http://www.dsg.ae/en/Publication/Pdf_En/826201211212209347849.pdf.

10. Asma Alsharif, “Saudi Prints 1.5 million Copies of Anti-Demo Edict,” Reuters, March 29, 2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/29/saudi-clerics-idAFLDE72S09720110329.

11. Stéphane Lacroix, “Saudi Islamists and the Potential for Protest,” Foreign Policy, June 2, 2011, http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/06/02/saudi_islamists_and_the_potential_for_protest.

12. Having failed at mediating the dispute between the Houthi rebels and the central government in Sanaa in 2010, Qatar has happily let Riyadh take the lead in resolving Yemen’s problems.

13. One move that would begin to address Yemen’s problems would be to offer Yemen full membership in the GCC. This would allow Yemenis to work in the richer Gulf countries and alleviate the poverty back home. No official Saudi or GCC leader has seriously proposed doing this, although unofficially it is an idea that is being discussed in Riyadh.

14. Between January 2011 and June 2012, Saudi Arabia publicly committed to providing $3.6 billion in aid to Yemen and $5 billion to Bahrain and Oman together, although little of that pledged aid had been confirmed as disbursed as of June 1, 2012. Yemeni officials, however, indicated in late 2012 that Saudi Arabia also provided them $2.2 billion in fuel products and a $1 billion central bank loan. International Monetary Fund, “Saudi Arabia: 2012 Article IV Consultation,” IMF Country Report, No. 12/271, September 2012, p. 4, http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2012/cr12271.pdf; “Saudi Arabia has given $3.7 bln in aid to region,” Reuters, September 19, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/19/saudi-imf-aid-idUSL5E-8KJ6I620120919.

15. Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah, speech at the Eighth International Institute for Strategic Studies Manama Dialogue, Manama, Bahrain, December 8, 2012, http://www.iiss.org/conferences/the-iissregional-security-summit/manama-dialogue-2012/speeches/secondplenary-session/qa/.

16. Jodi Rudoren, “Qatar’s Emir Visits Gaza, Pledging $400 Million to Hamas,” New York Times, October 23, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/world/middleeast/pledging-400-million-qatari-emirmakes-historic-visit-to-gaza-strip.html?_r=0; “Hamas political leaders leave Syria for Egypt and Qatar,” BBC News, February 28, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17192278.

17. Al Jazeera has gone so far as to set up a separate television channel just for Egypt, al-Mubashir Misr, which has been a propaganda mouthpiece for the Brotherhood in the unfolding events.

18. It is interesting to note that Qatar’s sponsorship of the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya appears to have diminished the Brotherhood’s electoral support; fed on foreign conspiracy theories for decades under Qaddafi’s rule, Libyans perceive Qatar to be meddling in their domestic affairs.

19. “Qatar Doubles Aid to Egypt,” January 8, 2013, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/world/middleeast/qatar-doublesaid-to-egypt.html.

20. Qatar has increased public spending, however, in response to regional unrest. In September 2011, it granted 60 percent increases in salaries and social allowances to civilian public employees and 50 to 120 percent increases to military personnel. The government also planned to boost spending by 27 percent overall in fiscal year 2012/13 over 2011/12. “Qatar budget surplus narrows to $1.4 bln,” Reuters, July 12, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/07/qatar-budget-idUSL5E8H726020120607.

This analysis paper is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions; accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

© 2013 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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