US should stop coddling the Saudis on Qatar

When Qatar was accused of sponsoring jihadi violence, people around the world drew back instinctively. To charge a country with backing terrorism is the geopolitical equivalent of charging an individual with child abuse. The accusation is so monstrous that, somehow, the presumption of innocence gets reversed.

Behavioral psychologists say that, when we are presented with an assertion, we tend to believe it in the absence of contrary evidence. Sure enough, there was an initial willingness to go along with the anti-Qatar coalition of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt. Donald Trump accepted their version of events unhesitatingly, tweeting that their blockade would be "the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!"

Seven weeks later, no one has produced any evidence that Qatar supports banned organizations. Yes, some Qatari residents have sponsored terrorists, but the same could be said of many countries. The Irish Republican Army, for example, raised a great deal of money in New York and Boston, but no one ever suggested that the United States was backing Irish terrorism. On the contrary, American security agencies worked closely with their British counterparts to contain the bloodshed.

In the same way, Qatari security agencies work with Western allies to monitor violent groups. It was at the request of American and British intelligence that they encouraged various radicals, including the Taliban, to open representative offices in Doha. An ex-MI6 source told me, "Doha was like Vienna during the Cold War. It suited us to have a place where we could keep an eye on these groups and, if necessary, open channels of communication." It likewise suited Israel to have Hamas operating out of Qatar rather than Iran.

In truth, this was never about terrorism. That the Saudis, of all people, are moaning about the export of violent Islamism should be enough to tell us that. Rather, it is about Qatar's insistence on pursuing an independent foreign policy rather than behaving as a Saudi protectorate. In Syria and Libya, Qatar supported its own allies rather than falling in behind the other Gulf monarchies.