A way out of the Qatar mess

THE dangerous dispute between Qatar and other Arab gulf states has gone on for three weeks, diverting attention from fighting Islamic State and other serious challenges. The Saudis and the United Arab Emirates provoked the row by breaking diplomatic relations with Qatar and imposing an effective embargo, ostensibly because of Qatar’s coddling of terrorists and other issues.

US Senator Bob Corker suggests a way to end the impasse and force some sort of reconciliation: halt arms sales throughout the region.

In a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Monday, Corker said recent disputes among the gulf states “only serve to hurt efforts to fight IS and counter Iran”. Future arms sales approvals would thus be held up until he receives “a better understanding of the path to resolve the current dispute and reunify” the regional group, the Gulf Cooperation Council.

This would give Tillerson a new tool for resolving the crisis. The Trump administration is moving forward with a plan to send $510 million in precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia for use in the Yemen civil war against Iranian-backed Huthi rebels and with a $12 billion deal for Qatar to buy F-15 jets. But the Saudis and the emirates might come looking for more weapons to prosecute that war, at which point the United States should say no. The war is a humanitarian catastrophe that urgently needs a political settlement.

The Saudis and the emirates might have tried to work out their differences with Qatar instead of acting unilaterally and only later outlining what steps could be taken to get the embargo lifted. The demands they finally made public on Friday were intended to humiliate Qatar rather than to serve as the basis for negotiations.

There is no question that Qatar needs to crack down harder on extremists and terrorist financing. But so do Saudi Arabia, the emirates and other gulf states, whose anger may have less to do with terrorism than with Qatar’s ties to Iran – Saudi Arabia’s main rival.

Tillerson has tried to mediate the dispute with little success. On Tuesday, he held separate meetings with the foreign ministers of Qatar and Kuwait. Afterward, there were hints Qatar had agreed with the Americans on tougher antiterrorism efforts. But the Saudi foreign minister signalled a tough line, saying his country’s demands were not negotiable. Nothing good can come of this dispute if it is allowed to persist.