Trump again blasts Qatar as his aides work to ease crisis
WASHINGTON — As his top advisers sought to defuse an escalating crisis in the Middle East, President Donald Trump doubled down Friday on his criticism of Qatar, a key U.S. ally, calling it a longtime “funder of terrorism at a very high level.”
Mr. Trump again took credit for what he described as a growing movement to fight Islamist-inspired terrorism in Sunni Arab countries.
He did not acknowledge any responsibility, however, for adding to the tension with criticisms that his aides have been trying to counter.
To that end, just an hour before Mr. Trump’s comments at a news conference, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called on Saudi Arabia and three other Arab nations to ease their recent crackdown on Qatar.
Mr. Tillerson said the decision of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt to cut diplomatic and economic relations with the neighboring, energy-rich emirate was having dire humanitarian consequences and hurting U.S. military operations fighting Islamic State militants.
Qatar is the site of the largest U.S. military base in the region and the launching point of numerous U.S. Air Force bombing missions.
“Our expectation is that these countries will immediately take steps to de-escalate the situation and put forth a good-faith effort to resolve the grievances they have with each other,” Mr. Tillerson said, reading from a statement. He called for a “calm and thoughtful dialogue” to ease the crisis, which he said was causing food shortages, separation of families and loss of business in Qatar.
Mr. Trump, however, did not seem to be on the same page, and a short time later contradicted his secretary of state, again praising Saudi Arabia, “my friend King Salman” and the “truly historic summit” that the Saudi ruler hosted in Riyadh.
By siding so vociferously with Saudi Arabia, the president’s latest foray into Middle East diplomacy has managed to roil allies and adversaries alike and inflame tension between the Persian Gulf region’s two powerhouses, Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran.
Many experts saw the decision to turn on Qatar as an action promoted by Saudi Arabia to punish the tiny emirate for its independence and efforts to influence foreign policy matters.
Unlike more authoritarian Gulf states, Qatar reacted positively to the Arab Spring of anti-regime protest movements in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere and has been more proactive in reaching out to Israel, still officially shunned by most of the Arab world.
It also welcomed establishment of the Al Udeid U.S. military base.
Qatar’s capital city, Doha, is also the home base of the Al Jazeera international news network, highly regarded in much of the Arab world and also quite critical of Riyadh and other authoritarian regimes. That earned it enmity in Saudi Arabia, which ordered its offices closed as part of the freeze on Qatar.
This international activism has been a mixed bag. Qataris have supported antiauthoritarian groups but also pro-Islamic groups, which in some parts of the region are the same thing.
So Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt riles the government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, who considers the Islamic political and social organization to be a terrorist front.
Mr. Tillerson, with Defense Secretary James Mattis, worked in the past few days to repair the rift and were holed up part of the time with Mr. Trump, even during the Senate hearing Thursday of fired FBI Director James Comey.
Mr. Trump also was on the telephone to several Gulf leaders Thursday and Friday, including the emir of Qatar, all in an attempt to avoid further escalation.
The latest of those was