By Natalie Ecanow
Sunday, March 08, 2026
For years, Qatar has tried to dance at two weddings.
America’s launch of Operation Epic Fury is forcing Doha to choose one.
Within the first 24 hours of the combined U.S.-Israel
campaign that began on February 28, Iran fired 65 missiles and twelve drones at Qatar, according to
the Qatari government. By March 1, Al Udeid Air Base, the largest American
military installation in the region, was reportedly hit twice. Iran subsequently targeted Qatar’s energy
infrastructure, prompting Doha to suspend
liquefied natural gas (LNG) production. On March 2, Qatar said it shot down two Iranian jets. Qatari spokesman Majed
al-Ansari told the press on March 3 that “there were attempts to
attack Hamad International Airport” in Doha.
Rather than pressuring the United States to de-escalate,
Iran’s attacks are driving a wedge between Qatar and the Islamic Republic. The
United States now has an opening to push Doha and Tehran apart, further
isolating the Iranian regime from its former friends.
Qatar has come under fire before, but its degree of
diplomatic alignment with Washington is new. After the United States
struck Iran’s nuclear program in June 2025, Iran retaliated by targeting Al Udeid Air Base. Qatar condemned the Iranian attack and “called for an immediate
cessation of all military actions.” At the time, Doha was serving as a mediator in the ongoing Israel-Iran war and
had expressed “grave concern” about the U.S. “attacks on the
sisterly Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Qatar’s expression of familial affection was not
shocking. Doha spent the first several days of the June 2025 Israel-Iran war
exploring ways to deepen its relationship with the Islamic Republic. Qatari
Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani phoned Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on June 14 to
discuss “ways to support and strengthen” bilateral relations. Days later, the
emir received a letter from Pezeshkian about ways to “enhance”
their “bilateral ties.”
The tone is dramatically different today. Iranian Foreign
Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi called
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Abdulrahman Al Thani on March 4, and what
followed was seemingly a heated exchange: the prime minister “categorically
rejected” Araghchi’s claim that Iranian strikes only targeted “American
interests” and accused Tehran of goading Gulf states “into a war ‘that’s not
theirs.’” By Saturday, staff at the Iranian embassy in Doha reportedly
received instructions to vacate Qatar within one week.
Qatar and Iran share the world’s largest natural gas
field, which means their partnership is in part a function of geography. “Iran
is my neighbor,” Sheikh Mohammed said last year. “I share with them the largest gas field in
the world . . . and I have to deal with them.” But as my Foundation for Defense
of Democracies colleague Saeed Ghasseminejad has written, their shared reservoir gives Qatar reason to lobby
for the Islamic Republic’s survival. The regime’s incompetence leaves Qatar
free to produce and profit from LNG exports without rival. Should the regime
collapse and a new government take its place, Qatar could quickly find its
energy dominance threatened.
Jockeying to keep the Islamic Republic afloat is one
thing. Enabling the regime to go against the grain of U.S. policy is another.
Qatar opposed the first Trump administration’s maximum pressure
campaign and criticized Washington’s decision in 2019 to designate
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist
organization. Two years later, outgoing Israeli President Reuven Rivlin
reportedly shared intelligence with the Biden administration indicating that
Qatar had provided the IRGC with funding. Qatar later allowed the
IRGC to showcase its arsenal at the 2024 Doha International
Maritime Defense Exhibition. Among the technologies that the IRGC advertised
were antiship cruise missiles like those that the Iran-backed Houthis fired at
American vessels in the Red Sea.
A distinct sign that the war is creating fault lines
between Qatar and Iran is the recent crackdown on IRGC operatives inside Qatar.
Doha announced on March 3 that Qatari authorities dismantled two IRGC cells,
arresting ten individuals allegedly “tasked with espionage missions” and “sabotage
activities.” Of course, no government is expected to tolerate domestic threats.
But Qatar’s move is noteworthy considering its prior ambivalence toward, if not
financial support for, the IRGC, not to mention its
long-standing tolerance for terrorist groups openly living and working on its
soil.
The question is whether these fissures will widen or
whether Qatar and Iran will patch their relationship once the fog of war
clears. This is precisely the question that arose after Israel struck Hamas operatives in
Doha in September 2025. Commentators rightly observed that Qatar “changed course” after landing in the crosshairs of the
Israeli Air Force. After decades of support for Hamas and months of
foot-dragging at the negotiating table, Qatar agreed to the Trump
administration’s proposal for Gaza, turned the screws on Hamas, and a new hostage
deal landed within weeks. Israeli jets created a rupture — the question was
whether Qatar would decide that its strategy of playing both sides had run its
course and maintain pressure on Hamas.
Whiffs of an answer emerged quickly. In October, Qatar’s
emir accused
Israel exclusively of violating the Gaza cease-fire. In December, al-Ansari suggested that Hamas shouldn’t fully disarm “under the
thumb of occupation.” If the Israeli strike pushed Qatar to step back from
Hamas, Doha’s retreat was short-lived.
The lesson is that cracks do not inevitably lead to
tectonic shifts. Washington missed an opening to drive Qatar and Hamas apart.
The Iran war has created a new opportunity for the United States to draw Qatar
away not from an Iranian proxy, but from the Islamic Republic itself. It’s up
to the Trump administration to seize the moment and drive a nail into the
coffin of the Qatar-Iran relationship.
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