As we cosy up to Qatar, the West must face the moral maze of the Middle East
Last month I wrote about the prospect of Dubai challenging London’s place as a great global financial centre. But Britain’s delicate dance with the Middle East does not end there. The emerging relationship between Europe and the United States on the one hand and the oil-rich emirate of Qatar on the other poses a multitude of questions we must ask of our foreign policy.
Qatar, despite its tiny size and population, is a serious economic player. It is one of the richest countries in the world by GDP per capita, its wealth stemming from oil and gas. Its financial sector avoided the worst effects of the global economic crisis in 2008 and the Qatari bourse, the Doha Securities Market, has proved a resilient institution.
Its presence on the world stage is growing, and this year Qatar is due to host the FIFA World Cup. This will be the first time the tournament is held in an Arab country. Owing to the extreme heat in the Gulf, the World Cup will happen in November and December this year at eight stadiums across the country. Fans of the piquant observation will be delighted to know that five of the venues have been designed by German architectural practice Albert Speer and Partners.
The West’s relations with Qatar have hit the headlines because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. With supplies of gas from Russia now politically contentious and strategically vulnerable, its customers are looking for alternative sources; last month the German vice-chancellor and economy minister, Robert Habeck – a Green, it should be remembered – visited Qatar to meet the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.
The Qatari government states that no final agreement was reached, but there was a discussion on the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG), of which the emirate has the third-largest reserves in the world. It is not a coincidence that Germany has recently announced plans to build two LNG terminals, without which it cannot directly import the energy.
What is the consequence of all of this? Where, one might ask, is the beef? The complicating factor is that Qatar is a state which enjoys fractious relations with its neighbours and attracts international criticism for its domestic regime. From 2017 to 2021, it was subject to an economic boycott by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt because of its close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and it remains a close ally of the pariah theocracy of Iran.
Even football is contentious. It is widely believed that Qatar engaged in corruption to secure the World Cup. Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter accused the emirate of “black ops”, including hiring a former CIA agent to gather information on rival bid teams. In addition, the construction of the World Cup venues has been marred by human rights abuses and extraordinarily high levels of deaths at work: Amnesty International has alleged widespread mistreatment including virtual slave labour under Qatar’s now-defunct Kafala sponsorship laws and the Guardian has suggested that at least 6,500 workers have died since 2010.
This matters because western governments and businesses will need to ask themselves hard questions. No matter how hard-headed and cynical the CEO or entrepreneur, no one operates in a moral vacuum. If Germany, for example, is seeking to free itself from dependence on Russian energy, at least in part as a moral stance against the invasion of Ukraine, it must have some care as to where it relocates its patronage. Meanwhile this year’s World Cup represents a serious reputational risk to corporate sponsors, partners and contractors; if the tournament is drenched in the blood of the exploited, it makes a poor platform for selling carbonated drinks or financial services.
This is not a new dilemma. But the standing of the US and its European allies in the Middle East is not high. Realpolitik and consistency may have an open relationship but we should be under no illusions that we are under scrutiny. If we pull the Qataris tightly to our bosom, while they remain hand-in-hand with Iran, hard questions can be expected from our allies in Saudi Arabia; we also weaken our small and diminishing influence on the broken polity of Iraq.
There are no easy answers in life. But a simple problem—reducing reliance on Russian gas—leads to multiple denouements which should at the very least be the subject of long and deep thought in the chancelleries, embassies and boardrooms of Europe and America. It is to be hoped that long and deep thought is not too out of fashion.