Qatar is located in the Arabian Peninsula, on the Persian Gulf coast.
Its neighbours are : Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates,
and Iran on the other side of the coast.
It's a desert area of eleven thousand, six hundred twenty-seven kilometre square. And it has a population of two million three hundred thirty-four thousand inhabitants. Al-Dawha , its capital , has alone nearly half of the population.
The population of Qatar has two special features :
- First with three men for every woman,it's one of the most severe sex-ratio imbalance in the world.
- Moreover, only 12 % of the population are actually Qatari citizens, while 82 % are non-citzens. In fact 163 nationalities live in Qatar. More than half of the population come from the Indian subcontinent. 13% come from the Arab World, especially from Egypt. And 11% from East Asia, mainly from Philippines.
So many immigrants live in this arid and sparsely populated country, and this has been the case since the middle of the 20th century, and the beginning of production of oil on large scale.
Here is a map of the Dukhan Field, on the west coast of the Peninsula. It has been discovered in 1939, and it's exploitation has started 10 years later, right after the World War two.
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At that time,Qatar was a British protectorate, just like the other eight Emirates of the Gulf.
Besides, the power has always been held by the Al-Thani family.In 1971, the British left their 9 protectorates,these countries tried then to create a united federal state, but Qatar and Bahrain, refused to join the political union process.
And that's the reason why, three states have declared their independence : Bahrain, Qatar,
and the united Arab emirates.
In 1974, the independent Qatar, takes full control of the foreign oil companies established on its territory, which will form the first element of its power.
As a matter of fact, more Qatar holds almost 14 percent of total world natural gas reserves, it's the third-largest in the world after Russia and Iran.
On this map, we represented the North Field, which is the most important offshore gas field in the world.
Between 2003 and 2013, Qatar has multiplied its production of gas by 5. Today it has become the fourth largest producer, with nearly 5% of world production in 2013, right after the united states, Russia and Iran.
As the production covers largely the national demands, Qatar can export its gas.
And because it's a peninsula, the Qatari authorities have centred their strategy on the LNG : The Liquefied natural gas.
In fact, at a temperature of -163 Celsius, we can liquefy the natural gas, which reduces its volume by 600, and facilitates its transport by sea.
Consequently, Qatar has nowadays the largest capacity of gas liquefaction in the world.
In 2013 Europe absorbed 22 % of the exports of the Qatari LNG, while asia purchased 71 %.
The main customers are : Japan, South Korea, India,China, and Taiwan.
Thanks to this exportation, the GDP of Qatar has been multiplied by two between 2009 and two 2014, while the population remained limited.
This is the reason why Qatar ranks number three on the list of the top richest nations based on the GDP per capita, right after Luxembourg and Norway.
Moreover, Qatar's gold and currency reserves have been multiplied by 40 times,
between 2002 and 2012. Therefore, there is an important accumulation of public savings, that the Qatari authorities try to fructify, in order to guarantee stable living conditions for future generations, especially after the depletion of gas resources. In other words, the authorities are trying to preserve wealth, by using gas revenues for investment in a range of economic sectors.
These public savings are managed by Qatar investment authority,which is a sovereign wealth fund.
This fund invests various countries around the world, which represents the second element of Qatar's power.
The main strategy of Qatar investment authority is the diversification of its financial investments :
All major economic sectors are concerned, for example :
- The property sector in China, with the eco-city of Tianjin.
- Agriculture in Sudan, with the purchase of fertile lands.
- Industry in Germany with Volkswagen.Sport in France, as it bought Paris Saint-Germain in two thousands and eleven.
- Finance in London with the acquisition of Canary Wharf, which is a major business district.
All in all, the Qatar investment authority invests in more than forty countries, which increases the political and diplomatic power of the country.
Then too , there is also a communication tool that increases the soft power of Qatar. It's Al-Jazeera, which is an international state-funded news TV channel, created in 1996, and available by cable and satellite both in Arabic and English.
In 2011, Al-Jazeera played an important role, by broadcasting news related to the Arab Spring, but its treatment of news has been politicized by supporting openly the fall of the regimes of the Arab Spring countries, while refusing to talk about riots in its neighbor : Bahrain.
In fact, the match between the editorial line of the channel, and the regional ambitions of the Emir,
was so obvious, which showed the political role of Al-Jazeera.
But what are the regional ambitions of the Qatari authorities ?
Qatar seeks above all to become a regional power . First it has been highly active as a conflict mediator within the Middle East by:
- Seeking a political consensus in Lebanon in 2008.
- Securing a key peace agreement regarding the Darfur conflict in Sudan since 2009.
- Looking for a conflict resolution between Ethiopia and Eritrea since 2010.
As mentioned earlier, Qatar supported the fall of many regimes during the Arab Spring.
In fact, it openly supportedthe rebellion in Libya, and participated as a member of the multi-state NATO-led coalition , in its military intervention against the Qaddafi regime.
Moreover, Al-Dawha has also supported the rebellion in Syria.Reports show that the more fundamentalist groups has benefited the most from this support, even if the Qatari authorities recognize only their support to the moderate represent of the rebellion.
Qatar has also supported the new regimes which are close to the Muslim Brotherhood.
In Tunisia, it supported the Islamist party : Ennahdha, in power between 2011 and 2014.
In Egypt, it supported the government of the president Morsee between 2012 and 2013.
This expansion of Qatar’s influence in North Africa and the Middle East, was possible because of the political vacuum and the lack of leadership in the Arab World ;
In fact Egypt is facing too many interior problems and challenges while Iraq is still suffering from sectarian strife. Saudi Arabia has been weakened too by conflicts related to inheritance of power.
Indeed, the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, is one of the important features of the geopolitics of the Arabian peninsula, as the two neighbors have challenged each other for greater influence across the Arab world since the Arab Spring.
In 2012 for example, after the Egyptian coup d'état, and the fall of the government of Morsee, Saudi Arabia supported the new government of General Abdul Fatah Al Sisi, while Qatar has welcomed the exiled Muslim Brotherhood leaders. Saudi Arabia has felt sidelined as Qatar's regional and global importance has grown.
Added to that, the Saudi royal family is looking at the Muslim Brotherhood as a serious threat to its existence.
On the other hand, by supporting the Muslim brotherhood, Qatar wants to increase its hegemony in the region.
In a nutshell, Qatar has supported the Muslim brotherhood, in order to promote the emergence of an islamic alternative to the saudi salafism, and to try to displace the traditional role of Saudi Arabia, as the guardian of Islam.
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