Trump takes credit for Saudi move against Qatar
Small Gulf nation is crucial military outpost for United States
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump thrust himself into a bitter Persian Gulf dispute Tuesday, claiming credit for Saudi Arabia’s move to isolate its smaller neighbor, Qatar, which is a major U.S. military partner.
“During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology,” Trump said in a morning tweet. “Leaders pointed to Qatar — look!”
On Monday, Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen broke diplomatic and commercial ties with Qatar, citing its support for terrorist groups. Trump, who made the cutting of terrorist funding a centerpiece of his trip to Saudi Arabia in May, said he was responsible.
“So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off,” the president said on Twitter. “They said they would take a hard line on funding.”
Moments later, he added, “Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!”
Qatar has long been accused of funneling arms and money to radical groups in Syria, Libya and other Arab countries. But so has Saudi Arabia. And Trump’s tweets have huge potential strategic consequences in the Middle East, where Qatar is a crucial military outpost for the United States.
A peninsula that juts into the Persian Gulf, Qatar is home to the forward headquarters of the U.S. Central Command. It is a major intelligence hub for the United States in the Middle East and the base where the United States plans and carries out airstrikes on the Islamic State group.
Qatar has also built deep ties to U.S. academia, providing funding and real estate to build Middle Eastern campuses for six major universities, including Cornell, Georgetown and Northwestern.
But Qatar’s financing of radical groups has long been a source of tension with Washington. The United States has generally avoided taking sides in the regional feuds in the Persian Gulf.
“We certainly would encourage the parties to sit down together and address these differences,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters in Sydney, where he and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis were meeting with officials.
Al Udeid base, outside of Doha, is home to around 10,000 U.S. troops.
Also Tuesday, the leaders of Kuwait and Turkey offered to play mediation roles in the dispute. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, an important Qatari ally, called his counterparts in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, as well as the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, a Turkish presidential official said.
The emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad, who has not joined the campaign against Qatar, flew to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for a meeting with the Saudi head of state, King Salman.
According to The Associated Press, Jordan has announced it is scaling back its diplomatic ties with Qatar and that it will close the local office of the Gulf nation’s Al-Jazeera TV channel. Jordanian government spokesman Mohammed Momani said in a statement that the decision was made to ensure regional stability, coordinate the policies of Arab countries and “end the crises in our region.”