On March 7, the podcaster Tucker Carlson released an interview with Qatar's prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. It was a complete and fully conscious whitewashing of the regime's transgressions in recent years. Two weeks later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio praised the Qataris for helping to facilitate the release of Delta Airlines mechanic George Glezmann, whom the Taliban had held hostage for two and a half years. "We extend our deepest appreciation to the State of Qatar, whose steadfast commitment and diplomatic efforts were instrumental in securing George's release," the statement read. "Qatar has consistently proven to be a reliable partner and trusted mediator, facilitating complex negotiations."
Then Carlson hosted Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who reported that "in the case of the Qataris, they're criticized for not being well motivated." He went on: "It's preposterous. They are well motivated. They're good, decent people. What they want is a mediation that's effective, that gets to a peace goal. And why? Because they're a small nation and they want to be acknowledged as a peacemaker."
The fawning treatment of Qatar did not begin with the new Trump administration. Rubio's predecessor, Antony Blinken, did it too. On January 19, just before the Biden administration's departure, Blinken "thanked the Prime Minister for his critical role in mediation efforts to reach a cease-fire that will end fighting in Gaza, bring the hostages home, and enable a surge in humanitarian assistance."
Set aside the undeniable fact that Qatar is a financial patron of both Hamas and the Taliban. Qatar is an autocratic, Islamist, terrorist-supporting, human rights–abusing regime that should not have any hand in U.S. foreign policy. Moreover, this tiny country of just 330,000 citizens represents roughly 0.00004 of the world's population. Yet it somehow has gained immense influence in American politics. That must end. But before we explore how to do that, we need to understand how Qatar's rise occurred.
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When I first visited Qatar in 2003, I was less than impressed. Walking in the sweltering heat and humidity, I couldn't help but notice that nearly everyone around me hailed from Southeast Asia. They were the help, and they represented the overwhelming majority of those living in Qatar. Actual Qataris were nowhere to be found. And they were utterly uninterested in speaking with Westerners seeking to learn more about the Pentagon's Combined Air Operations Center—located at Al-Udeid, America's most important air base in the Middle East.
The sprawling and gleaming Al-Udeid had been built to Pentagon specifications at no cost. The location was seen as ideal, just across the Persian Gulf from America's foremost Middle East enemy, the Islamic Republic of Iran—and near Iraq, to which we had committed our blood and treasure in 2003. This is how it came to be that American war fighters prosecuted our War on Terror from a country that sponsors terrorism.
Qatar, as the U.S. intelligence community had long known, was a haven for future 9/11 mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed. He had wired money from Qatar to al-Qaeda operatives in advance of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Just as U.S. forces were on the verge of trapping him in a net in 1996, senior figures from the Qatari regime warned Mohammed and helped him escape.
In that same year, the Qatari regime created the Al Jazeera television network. The satellite station went on to become a vitriolic mouthpiece for al-Qaeda, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other jihadi factions Washington sought to counter after the 9/11 attacks. As former Bush White House aide John Hannah has noted, Al Jazeera reporters somehow knew exactly when and where attacks against American forces were set to take place in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they were often the first on the scene, providing valuable propaganda for the terrorists America was fighting. Al Jazeera reporters were also somehow able to gain access to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's videos and missives ahead of the competition.
In short, the warning signs were there to demonstrate that Qatar was a bad actor. American policymakers simply chose not to see them.
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For the first few years at Al-Udeid, things went fine. The Qataris were thrilled to host us, because they lacked a military. The very presence of the American Air Force was a deterrent to its enemies. However, the release of WikiLeaks documents in 2010 revealed that this arrangement had been less than ideal. A 2009 U.S. diplomatic cable labeled Qatar the "worst in the region" on counterterrorism. And it soon became clear why.
In 2012, Qatar became the home of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, along with other Hamas figures. The Palestinian terror group's external leadership moved to Qatar after being jettisoned by the Jordanian and Syrian regimes over the preceding years (even as Hamas itself remained the governing body in Gaza). Qatar was a natural place for Hamas to land, given the regime's longstanding support for the Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas is a splinter faction of the Islamist movement). In 2012, the emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, visited Gaza and pledged $400 million in assistance. He was the first foreign leader to visit the territory after Hamas wrested it from the rival Fatah faction in a 2007 civil war. As Reuters subsequently noted, "During numerous gatherings in Doha, Meshaal [was] always keen to express his gratitude and prayers to Qatar's leaders for their support."
But Hamas was only part of the problem. Qatari policies relating to the "Arab Spring" in 2011 were no less problematic. The tiny Gulf nation actively supported multiple Islamist groups seeking to topple regimes across the Middle East. Among them were Salafi jihadi groups in Syria, including the Nusra Front, now known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. That group conquered Syria in December 2024, and Qatar continues to provide the group with significant financial support.
According to numerous press reports, Qatar also sent huge amounts of weapons and cash to Islamist fighters in Libya. A 2013 UN report asserted that Qatar violated the UN arms embargo by "providing military material to the revolutionary forces through...a large number of flights and the deliveries of a range of arms and ammunition." According to another Egyptian report, Doha has provided more than $890 million to Libyan extremist groups since 2011.
In December 2013, the U.S. Treasury added Qatar-based Abd al-Rahman bin 'Umayr al-Nu'aymi to its terrorist sanctions list, noting his "transfer of nearly $600,000 to al Qaeda." Treasury noted al-Nu'aymi's links to the emirate's elites while supporting al-Qaeda's "affiliates in Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen." Multiple reports suggested that Qatar was paying ransom to terror groups that kidnapped Westerners. Those payments were nothing short of terrorism finance that encouraged further abductions.
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In December 2014, when Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel visited Qatar, he met with Qatar's emir and other senior officials, and he toured the sprawling al-Udeid Air Base. Despite Qatar's ongoing support for violent extremist groups, Hagel touted the close "partnership" between America and the diminutive emirate. Hagel stated that U.S. ties with Qatar were "important, and probably more so than they've ever been."
The timing of Hagel's statement was significant. In 2013, the Taliban opened an embassy in Qatar. U.S. officials soon began to negotiate America's surrender in Afghanistan with representatives of this office. The talks occurred under the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations.
Qatar soon became home to the notorious "Taliban Five" — high-level prisoners from Guantanamo Bay who were transferred to Qatari custody by the Obama administration in exchange for the American deserter Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. The Qataris facilitated the swap with American acquiescence, even as leaked cables show U.S. officials had long worried that the Taliban could "exploit Qatar as a fundraising locale."
As ties with Qatar deepened, U.S. officials continued to express concern. In 2016, the Treasury Department's top terrorism-finance official, Adam Szubin, stated that the Qataris demonstrated "a lack of political will . . . [to] enforce their combating terrorist financing laws." In February 2017, Daniel Glaser, who had recently stepped down as assistant secretary of the Treasury, told an audience at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies that "designated terrorist financiers" were "operating openly and notoriously" in Qatar.
And so it came to be that Qatar supported jihadi causes across the Middle East while simultaneously working with Washington at the highest levels. Doha insists that the Hamas and Taliban offices were established at the behest of the American government, to engage with the two terrorist groups. While officials have since thanked Doha for their services, there is no record of the U.S. government ever requesting these offices to be established. Indeed, the U.S. government has a standing policy (weakly enforced if at all) of not negotiating with terrorists. That policy dates back to the presidency of Richard Nixon.
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In 2022, Qatar hosted the World Cup—no small feat for such a tiny nation. Despite the dearth of stadiums, hotels, or other infrastructure, Qatar beat out Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. And now we know how. The U.S. Department of Justice in 2020 issued a superseding indictment stating that soccer executives "received bribe payments in exchange for their votes in favor of Qatar." One official named was the former president of South America's soccer confederation, Nicolás Leoz, who reportedly sold his vote for some $8.5 million.
Qatar's corruption didn't end there. On December 9, 2022, Belgian police arrested European Parliament President Eva Kaili. She became the face of the scandal known as "Qatargate." At least 10 other European Union employees and officials were also swept up in the scandal. Authorities confiscated up to €750,000 in cash, as evidence mounted that EU officials took Qatari bribes to change the "narrative in parliament" about the country's horrific treatment of the migrant workers who were forced to labor feverishly to build World Cup infrastructure. The Guardian reports that 6,500 foreign workers died under dreadful conditions.
While attending the World Cup in Qatar, then-chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Robert Menendez told Qatari media that Qatar had "come a long way in the development of labor rights." Menendez would soon resign, after being found guilty of accepting bribes and using his "influence and power" to "benefit the Government of Qatar," and to "assist" a real estate developer in a multimillion-dollar Qatari investment deal.
Remarkably, Qatar belongs to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). In December, Qatar will host the biennial Conference of State Parties (CoSP) to UNCAC—an entire conference dedicated to combatting corruption and held in the heart of one of the world's top terror-financing and corruption-peddling regimes.
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As patience ran out on the War on Terror, the desire to bring the war in Afghanistan to its conclusion found rare bipartisan support in Washington. The Taliban's Doha office continued to serve as the hub for talks with American officials. Astoundingly, the Qataris convinced the Americans that the Taliban was ready to end the war and maintain a stable government in Afghanistan.
On April 14, 2021, President Joe Biden sealed Afghanistan's fate, announcing a full withdrawal. Biden committed the catastrophic mistake of removing military assets before evacuating American civilians. Four months later, on August 15, 2021, the Taliban entered Kabul and the Afghan government collapsed. Less than two weeks after that, 13 American servicemen lost their lives in an attack perpetrated by Islamic State–Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) in what is now known as the Abbey Gate disaster.
Even after this calamity, Qatar continued to serve as interlocutor between the United States and terrorists or terrorist regimes. Inexplicably, Washington continues to thank Doha for its services, even when the outcome is poor.
In August 2023, Qatar brokered a deal for the release of five Americans imprisoned in the Islamic Republic of Iran on spurious charges in exchange for an equal number of Iranian nationals in U.S. custody. The Iranians were guilty of criminal offenses; the Americans had been detained only for the purpose of leverage. Qatar convinced the Biden administration to pay a $6 billion ransom to Tehran. The Americans were released in September 2023 after the funds reached the central bank of Qatar.
Two months later, on October 7, Qatar-funded Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, killing 1,200, injuring another 3,500, and kidnapping 254. As the Middle East plunged into chaos, Doha immediately volunteered to broker hostage negotiations. The Biden administration didn't blink, even though Qatar had been sending Hamas $30 million per month. Similarly, Washington didn't seem to care that Hamas's external leadership was based in Doha as guests of the regime.
In November 2023, 80 Israeli hostages were released in exchange for 150 Hamas prisoners convicted of perpetrating terrorism. Another deal was not reached for more than a year. In other words, Qatar failed to do its job. Finally, in January 2025, additional Israeli hostages were let go in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Details have since emerged that aides close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took money from Qatari agents. The revelations have plunged Israel into a political crisis.
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As Hamas and other Iran-backed proxies waged war against the Jewish state, another war was raging here at home. Anti-Israel, anti-American, and anti-Semitic protests erupted on campus and on Main Street. University officials appeared indifferent to the tumult. With the benefit of hindsight, we now understand why. Estimates suggest that Qatar has gifted anywhere from $7 billion to $20 billion to institutions of higher learning over the past two decades. Alarmingly, researchers are now combing through data revealing that Qatar has invested untold sums in K–12 public schools as well. Indeed, the Islamist dictatorship that funds Hamas and the Taliban has a foothold in American education.
But the problem is greater than education. It's fair to ask whether the Qataris are making a play for "state capture." Law firms, lobby groups, public relations shops, and other levers of influence are all on generous Qatari retainers. Hedge funds, mutual funds, joint ventures, and other generators of American wealth are similarly beholden to Qatari cash. Large parcels of real estate in one city after the next have been gobbled up by Qatari-backed developers. And that's just what we know.
Money is no object for Qatar. This is a country that controls more than 10 percent of the world's energy. And the needs of the country's tiny population make it such that the regime can spend money on soft power and influence without limit.
Today, the Trump administration features numerous senior figures who have had business dealings with Qatar. Jared Kushner's business ties are by now well known. But Witkoff, Attorney General Pamela Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin are among the more notable names.
To be fair, it's unclear how much Qatar influences these figures—if at all. We must hope the influence is minimal. What's needed now are government mechanisms to monitor the flow of Qatari cash and to minimize the effect of the country's operations. Concurrently, Qatar needs to be sidelined as a negotiator for the terrorist groups it funds. And a serious government effort must now be mounted to counter the influence of a tiny, wealthy, and insidious regime that most Americans couldn't point out on a map.