Several countries can claim some credit for the tentative memorandum of understanding to end the war between Iran and the United States, which officials from both countries plan to sign later this week. Pakistan had for some time led negotiations. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Oman were involved in elements of the talks. But to hear Donald Trump tell the story, the whole deal might not have materialized without the intervention of a crucial friend in the neighborhood.
“Working with Qatar and the people of Qatar was really a pleasure,” Trump reflected today as he met with the Qatari emir on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Evian, France. “They were tough; they were strong. You know, they are the closest to Iran physically. So with other countries, I noticed they had to travel about 45 minutes to get there. With you, you could walk right across the border.” Not quite. A roughly 100-mile stretch of the Persian Gulf separates Qatar from Iran. The Qataris are skilled negotiators, but they do not walk on water.
That water, in fact, is essential. What’s underneath it forms the basis of Qatar’s unique relationship with Iran: the single largest deposit of natural gas on the planet, which extends into each country’s territory. And the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively controlled for the past four months of war, is the sole transit point for the liquefied natural gas that fuels Qatar’s economy and has helped make its tiny population among the richest per capita in the world.
Perhaps no country was better suited than Qatar to open a channel of communication between Iran and the United States. Qatar hosts the largest American military base in the Middle East, and for three decades, Washington has been its most important global ally. Before the war began, Qatari officials were in Tehran trying to broker meetings with the Trump administration to preempt the conflict. “I do have to say, you fought and you helped us and with great bravery,” Trump told the emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who sat impassively, dressed in a sober gray suit. “So I just want to compliment you on that, and, uh, you’ll always be my friend.”
It was not hard to imagine the screams emanating from Jerusalem and Riyadh. Qatar’s regional rivals have long seen Doha as a political and financial enabler of Iran-backed extremism throughout the Middle East. Qatar characterizes its ties to Tehran as a relationship of necessity, based on geography and shared economic interests, but its neighbors see something far more cynical and sinister. What Doha calls neutrality in its foreign policy, they call hedging bets and buying influence, particularly through lobbying spending in Washington that is out of proportion for a country of only about 300,000 citizens. Qatar’s gift to Trump of a luxury jetliner last year was such an ostentatious display of influence that it chagrined even some Qatari officials. (The country insists that it always intended to sell the plane, valued at about $400 million, to the Defense Department.) Qatar’s diplomatic and cultural ties to Iran, as well as its decision to host the political offices of Hamas, make it a unique troublemaker in Israel’s eyes.
Allies of the plucky peninsula acknowledge that it plays all sides, but they also say that Qatar does this better than anyone. “The Qataris are the best diplomats in the region,” one U.S. official told my colleague Vivian Salama. Qatar’s credibility with the Trump administration gave it leverage in Tehran: “By empowering them, the people in Iran who wanted to make a deal took them seriously,” the official said.
[Read: A turning point in the Iran war]
Whether you call Qatar’s strategy duplicity or diplomacy, as far as Trump is concerned, the Qataris helped seal an agreement that the president desperately wanted, and they remain at the top of his “nice” list.
Al Thani might have preferred that Trump didn’t draw too much attention to the fact that his emissaries had spent the past few months shuttling from Doha and Tehran to Washington, D.C., and Miami. It was the Qatari delegation that got talks moving again after they had stalled out in the spring, diplomats familiar with the matter told me. They added that after a tentative cease-fire took hold in April, Washington and Tehran asked the Qataris to help get the process on track to ultimately reach a deal.
This is territory that Qatar knows well. The country has turned international-conflict mediation into its most vital national industry behind energy production. Last year, Qatari teams were participating in a dozen separate negotiations at once, officials told me.
The memorandum that Qatar helped hammer out reportedly includes sanctions relief for Iran, a pathway to diluting or removing stockpiles of highly enriched uranium from the country, and a plan for reopening the Strait of Hormuz to shipping. That last point was especially crucial for Qatar, which has not produced or shipped liquefied natural gas since the war began.
When it was the Qatari emir’s turn to speak at the G7 summit today, he said almost nothing about his own country’s mediation role and instead praised Trump for his leadership. He also took the opportunity to note Qatar’s planned investments in the United States totaling more than $1.2 trillion. (The Qataris have learned better than most to speak Trump’s favorite language.)
“I think it was a very critical time,” Al Thani said. “You took the right decision.”
If the deal holds, Trump will have finally found his off-ramp. It ran through Doha.
Vivian Salama contributed reporting for this story.
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