A review on Monday of Foreign Agent Registration Act records show that since May 31, six U.S. companies or individuals have registered new Qatari lobbying contracts with the Department of Justice. That number includes the major firms Ogilvy (which is being paid $10,000 per month) and Portland PR ($20,000 per month).
The basic takeaway is that Qatar is determined to cultivate its relationship with Washington policymakers. But as Haaretz also reported on Monday, Qatar is keen to balance U.S. lobbying efforts with simultaneous outreach to Iran.
So what’s going on here?
Well, put simply, Qatar wants the best of all worlds. It wants the U.S. government to turn a blind eye to Qatar’s support for Islamic extremists and it wants to strengthen its economic relationship with Iran. On paper, the Qatar-Iran affair is absurd. Where Iran enjoins Shia-Khomeinist liberation narratives, Qatar pursues an expansionist Sunni-Salafist agenda. These agendas are in existential ideological contest, but both Iran and Qatar share a massive liquid natural gas field, are hateful of Saudi Arabia, and are supportive of Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas. As such, they have chosen to align for the short-medium term.
But that cuts to the core of why Qatar’s extravagant inside-the-Beltway lobbying efforts will ultimately fail. When it comes to U.S. assessments of U.S. policy interests, Qatari sums don’t add up. For a start, the Trump administration is ardently opposed to compromise with Qatar’s sometime partner, Iran. Where Qatar seems to think it can act as an intermediary for the two sides, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is showing no interest in cutting deals with the Iranian government. Qatar would have better luck dealing with Germany in this regard.
More importantly, broader Qatari-U.S. interests are increasingly divorced. Qatar might be home to the theater headquarters for the Pentagon’s Central Command, but Doha’s support for hardliner Sunni Islamist groups is incompatible with U.S. interests. And Qatari credibility is even lacking where they try to assist the U.S. as an interlocutor. Where the Qataris have hosted U.S. negotiations with certain Taliban officials, for example, the truly important U.S. negotiations are taking place in other forums with other more powerful Taliban officials.
Another critical challenge Qatar faces in its attempt to woo Washington is the divergence between its political strategy and that of the other Sunni-Arab monarchies. Where Qatar continues to tolerate terrorist fundraising on its soil, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are embracing political modernization and economic diversification programs. These efforts have won the Saudis new favor from the U.S. national security bureaucracy and a kinder Trump administration ear to their concerns. Topping those concerns is Qatar’s buddy, Iran, which is threatening new misbehavior.
While Qatar can improve its U.S. standing, it’s going to take more than bundles of millions of dollars to achieve that objective. Ultimately, it’s going to take Qatar’s abandonment of Islamic extremism and its more skeptical eye towards Iran. Until then, the only beneficiaries of Qatar’s foreign policy will be Islamic terrorists and Washington lobbyists.
