The 2022 World Cup held under the epidemic has focused our attention on a country that was often ignored in the past-Qatar. With this curiosity, I also intentionally inquired about Qatar's geographical location and why it has become the target of boycott or wooing by Iran and Saudi Arabia. Let’s start with the two big countries, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and then talk about the little brother Qatar.
From a geographical point of view, the thousand-year feud between Saudi Arabia and Iran is inherited from the past struggle between Arabia and Persia. It continues to this day, and Saudi Arabia and Iran, which have inherited different mantles, are still estranged.
The relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States
Saudi Arabia is excessive and gives us the impression that it is an extremely conservative country. In the 1930s, two major countries in the Islamic world, Turkey and Iran, actively initiated "secularization" reforms in order to modernize their countries and established secular regimes that separated politics and religion. However, Saudi is an exception. The King of Saudi Arabia not only monopolized all important military and political positions, but also established Islam as the state religion based on the "Quran". Originally divided according to ideological camps, Saudi Arabia and the United States have completely opposite cultures and cannot become allies. What is surprising is that in 1951, the United States and Saudi Arabia signed the "Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement". Although their values were seriously inconsistent, the alliance between the two sides was formally established. The United States provides arms sales and security protection to Saudi Arabia. There are no eternal enemies in the world, only eternal interests. is simply a wise saying.
The advantage is that Saudi Arabia's proven oil reserves are huge. And an alliance intertwined by pure interests is destined to be loose. After the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Russia suffered comprehensive sanctions from the West, and global oil, natural gas and other energy production decreased significantly. There is a crisis of rising oil and gas prices and inflation in Europe and the United States. Therefore, they are more dependent on oil and gas resources in the Middle East to alleviate energy shortages. However, in October 2022, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC, OPEC), represented by Saudi Arabia, and the "OPEC+" formed by Russia and other countries announced that starting from November, the average daily crude oil production would be reduced by 2 million barrels. This slapped the United States in the face, and as a result, a rift appeared in the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Relations between Iran and the United States
The relationship between Iran and the United States also had a honeymoon period. During the struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union , during the Pahlavi era, Iran carried out a series of reforms such as popularizing education, judicial independence, establishing universal medical care, restricting religious power, and advocating Western-style life. Iran's economy developed rapidly and it once entered the ranks of the top ten industrial countries in the world. But his reforms also aroused strong dissatisfaction among domestic conservatives and religious forces. In 1979, the Iranian Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Pahlavi regime and established the Islamic Republic of Iran. The irreconcilable relationship between Israel and Iran, as well as the complete mismatch of beliefs and concepts, have led to the fact that neither Iran nor the United States has eased up.
What is interesting is that the United States and Iran met in the 2022 Qatar World Cup group stage, and they are destined. After sorting out the above background knowledge, we can better sort out why the relationship between Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran is delicate.
Qatar's relations with Saudi Arabia and Iran
Since June 2017, long-standing conflicts between Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain , Egypt and other countries have erupted with Qatar. These countries have strongly criticized Qatar for maintaining good relations with Iran and "sponsoring terrorism". They have announced that they will sever or downgrade diplomatic relations with Qatar, block aviation, shipping and land transportation between their countries and Qatar, and significantly restrict personnel exchanges, cargo transportation and capital flows between the two parties.
It was not until January 2021 that, with the intervention of the US Biden administration and the mediation of the international community, Saudi Arabia and other countries announced the gradual restoration of diplomatic relations with Qatar, the situation was eased. Since then, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other countries have actively supported the preparation and hosting of the Doha World Cup, and the atmosphere of cooperation has gradually become good. Salman and other leaders went to Doha to attend the opening ceremony of the World Cup, indicating that the rift between Saudi Arabia and other countries and Qatar has been bridged.
And why does Qatar want to befriend Iran and not hesitate to offend Saudi Arabia? After all, geographically speaking, it is closer to Saudi Arabia. It is also because they are too close that Qatar insists on maintaining good relations with Iran. On the one hand, it is out of the economic interests of cooperating in the development of natural gas resources; on the other hand, more importantly, it is to balance the influence of Saudi Arabia and other countries on the country to maintain independence.
At this time, the ball has been thrown to Saudi Arabia. How to choose? Because a small country has no choice but to survive in the cracks, and as a big country is an opinion leader and a big brother followed by a bunch of younger brothers, it has to make a good choice.
