[ad_1]
Qatar moved quickly to try to dial down the boiling tension in the Middle East after the killing of Qasem Soleimani by the United States.
Qatar’s foreign minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was dispatched to Tehran to meet his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif on Saturday.
His mission came in the wake of the attack against Soleimani and repeated threats by Iranian officials to revenge the death of the top general.
One side-effect of the killing could, conceivably, be a recognition that the US has swerved form being an unreliable ally to its friends in the Middle East under former president Barack Obama to an unpredictable one under Donald Trump.
The Qataris have been locked in a bitter dispute with other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but they all agree that there is a profound economic and social need to reduce the tensions with Iran.
It is conceivable, although not highly likely, that the pro-Western leadership in the Middle East may begin to forge their own paths in terms of their relations with Iran in the face of the erratic behavior of the US.
If these leaders were able to wean themselves off their dependence on the US for direction they may be able to establish a less fractious and fearful relationship with Tehran.
Iran, meanwhile, might be pulled closer into relationships with its neighbors rather than being seen, and choosing to be, something close to an existential threat to many Arab states.
Optimism in this region, though, usually leads to heartbreak.
Already the street-level demonstrations (mostly by Shia groups) in Iran and Iraq against the alleged corruption and incompetence of their Shia-dominated governments have been replaced with large anti-American demonstrations and the familiar sight of the US flag burnings.
For now, then, Souleimani’s death has saved Iran’s ruling class from losing the influence it had seen slipping through its hands a week ago in Iraq and its own country.
[ad_2]
Source link