How Qatar attempts to buy influence overseas

Qatar has long fancied itself as a major player in the politics of the Middle East, an intermediary between the Arab World and the West.

The country has used its wealth to buy influence as well as material symbols of power.

In 2011, the anti-Qaddafi movement in Libya drew Qatar into an external conflict for the first time and marked its entry into the big boys’ club of foreign policy, alongside France, the United States and Britain.

Doha supplied weapons and money to the rebels. And though it was the first Arab country to recognise the National Transition Council in Libya, the substantial aid Qatar sent to Libya was soon bypassing the NTC and heading straight to extremist rebels, such as Ali Al Sallabi.

Qatar had given asylum to the Libyan radical during the Qaddafi years and it was in Qatar that Al Sallabi came under the influence of Yusuf Al Qaradawi, spiritual head of the Muslim Brotherhood.

But Doha’s ambitions extended beyond the Middle East. In their book, Our Dearest Emirs, French journalists Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot lay bare the links between the French establishment and Qatar.

Speaking exclusively to The National, Georges Malbrunot, an expert in Middle East Affairs, said, “Our intention is not to depict Qatar in a negative way, but there are several grey areas that must be addressed.” Among the greyest areas are Qatar’s successful bid to host the 2022 World Cup and the purchase by the Qatari investment firm Oryx Qatar Sports Investments in 2010 of football club Paris Saint-Germain.

Investigators in France are currently probing the possible role of former president Nicolas Sarkozy in those two sporting triumphs for the Qataris

France emerged as one of the key backers of Qatar’s World Cup bid during Mr Sarkozy’s presidency. The allegations around the former president are that he received funds and profited from multi-million-dollar business deals.

“The problem currently at the heart of the crisis [between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain], is that it has been financing dubious charity works around the world, and particularly in Europe,” Malbrunot said.

While little involved militarily, Doha nonetheless exercises considerable “soft power” in the conflicts plaguing the Gulf region and beyond. One of its methods is paying ransoms.

“The soft power of Qatar is embodied by this capacity to balance things out by doing favours: they have helped with the release of hostages and paid ‘ransoms’. The West, and France in particular, did not want to acknowledge these activities, because Qatar helped western countries many times,” said Malbrunot.

Our intention is not to depict Qatar in a negative way, but there are several grey areas that must be addressed