Before midnight on Monday, Qatari officials convened a group of journalists in a purple meeting room to protest a missile barrage from Iran that targeted a large U.S. military installation in the desert outside the Qatari capital, Doha.
Majed al-Ansari, the foreign ministry spokesman, declared that his country had the right to respond to the attack a few hours earlier. At the same time, he called for de-escalating the new war between Israel and Iran and for cease-fire negotiations.
But it seems that Qatar had already begun to help to broker a truce, engaging quietly with Israel’s American allies and with the Iranian government behind the scenes.
“What happened shows Qatar can take a hit but be pragmatic,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House.
After the United States intervened on the side of Israel and bombed Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday morning, Iran responded by attacking the military base in Qatar.
Qatar knew in advance that an attack was planned on the Al Udeid Air Base and almost all missiles fired at the site were intercepted, according to Maj. Gen. Shayeq Misfer al-Hajri, the Qatari deputy chief of staff for joint operations.
On Tuesday, the Qatari foreign ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador in Doha but did not announce any punitive measures against Iran.
The Qatari government’s swift shift from defending its right to respond to playing mediator suggested an element of “choreography,” said Nicholas Hopton, who was Britain’s ambassador to Qatar from 2013 to 2015.
As Qatar and the other Gulf nations watched the Israel-Iran war unfold over the past two weeks, they worried that an escalation could result in Iran targeting their strategic energy resources, undermining a critical source of their revenue.
The Iranian government may have viewed the base in Qatar as a less risky target than many of the other options in the region, if it wanted to minimize escalation and avoid damage to relations with other Gulf Arab countries, which had been warming in recent years.
The wealthy emirate of Qatar has generally maintained closer ties with Iran than most of the other Gulf countries. It has also played a leading role in mediating between Israel and Hamas, the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group, since the war in Gaza began in October 2023.
If Iran attacked another Gulf nation, it might have run into more complicated territory.
The headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, in Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia’s oil installations could also have been become targets. But Iran’s diplomatic relations with these two other Gulf nations are still new and relatively shaky.
The United Arab Emirates is one of Iran’s largest trading partners, offering Iran a vital link to the global economy as it navigates longstanding Western sanctions. The prospect of missiles flying over Dubai, a glitzy metropolis in the Emirates, would have alienated a neighbor that Iran depends on.
Qatari officials intervened with Iran on behalf of the Trump administration, according to three diplomats briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. They said that Mr. Trump had told the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, that Israel had signed off on an American cease-fire proposal.
The president had asked Qatar to help bring Iran on board, the diplomats said. The Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, then persuaded Iran to agree to the truce proposal by late Monday in a call with the Iranian leadership, the diplomats said.
A senior White House official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the negotiations publicly, said the Qatari emir played a role in the cease-fire discussions.
The truce took effect early Tuesday morning and appeared to be holding as evening approached.
Qatar’s handling of the crisis illustrated the value the wealthy Gulf emirate puts in its relationship with the United States, said Mr. Hopton, the former British diplomat.
“Trump wanted a de-escalation and Qatar was able to help him with that,” Mr. Hopton said.
A pillar of Qatar’s foreign policy is to maintain a close relationship with the United States, and Qatari officials frequently take advantage of opportunities to prove to the American government that they can be a strategic ally on important American foreign policy objectives.
With a small army, Qatar relies on the United States to provide it with a security blanket. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, powerful neighboring countries, have occasionally taken hostile positions against Qatar.
Vivian Nereim and Maggie Haberman contributed reporting to this article.
Adam Rasgon is a reporter for The Times in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs.
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