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S E C R E T DOHA 000052 
 
SIPDIS 
 
H PASS TO SENATOR KERRY FROM AMBASSADOR LEBARON 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/07/2020 
TAGS: PREL OVIP OREP KWBG KPAL QA
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR SENATOR KERRY'S VISIT TO QATAR 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Joseph E. LeBaron, for reasons 1.4 (b, d). 
 
¶1. (C) Mr. Chairman, Embassy Doha welcomes your visit to 
Qatar.  We have requested host-country meetings for you with 
the Amir and Prime Minister on the margins of the 
U.S.-Islamic Forum.  You would be the first Congressional 
visitor to meet in Doha with Qatari officials since Speaker 
Pelosi in May.  We expect the primary focus of your 
discussions will be advancing U.S.-Qatar cooperation on 
Palestinian-Israeli issues.  We begin there below, followed 
by a presentation of Qatar's regional views, diplomatic 
engagement, food security, and the role of Al Jazeera.  At 
the end of this message, we provide an overview of the 
U.S.-Qatar relationship. 
 
¶2. (C) In June, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern 
Affairs Feltman proposed "continuous dialogue" with senior 
Qatari officials.  Since that visit to Qatar, Minister of 
State for Foreign Affairs Al-Mahmoud, MFA Assistant Minister 
Al-Rumaihi, and Prime Minister (also Foreign Minister) Hamad 
bin Jassim Al Thani (HBJ) have all traveled to Washington for 
consultations and dialogue.  Both governments agree that we 
have generally "turned the corner" in our relationship, 
following a tense period during the second term of President 
George W. Bush. 
 
¶3. (S) The souring of the relationship under the previous 
Administration stemmed largely from different approaches to 
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  According to the Amir, 
then-Secretary of State Rice sought his help in ensuring 
Hamas' participation in Palestinian elections, elections 
which the Amir said he told Rice from the beginning Hamas 
would win.  In securing Hamas' participation, the Amir 
promised Qatar's financial support to the winner -- Hamas or 
Fatah.  After Hamas' victory, the Bush Administration asked 
the Amir to cut off financial assistance to Hamas, a 
terrorist organization.  Having given his word to Hamas that 
he would support them if they won, the Amir refused. 
 
¶4. (C) Besides his abiding sense of commitment and loyalty, 
the Amir is someone who wants to take action.  His 
frustration, if not his anger, with Arab inaction in helping 
the Palestinians led to Qatar's casting its lot with more 
radical elements just before President Obama took office. 
That was a lamentable departure from Qatar's normal behavior. 
 
 
¶5. (C) The Amir has wealth and a vision to develop Qatar's 
potential in education, science, and technology.  Neither his 
wealth nor his vision garners him respect.  On the contrary, 
one of Qatar's problems is that its neighbors envy what this 
small state has at its disposal.  The best way you can help 
us take advantage of Qatar's vision and resources is by 
tapping into the Amir's enthusiasm and energy and harnessing 
them as resources that we as partners can leverage together. 
 
¶6. (C) GETTING THE MONEY:  Qatar does not respond to our 
numerous appeals for financial assistance because they don't 
come from senior USG officials as part and parcel of a 
bilateral strategic partnership.  The Amir did not lead Qatar 
to where it is today without defining targets and creating 
stakeholders.  He yearns to have the President reach to him 
(which began on the margins of the UN General Assembly in 
September) and chart a course together based on cooperation, 
commitment, and trust. 
 
¶7. (C) Qatar has money, but it spends it wisely, on the 
whole.  When Qatar assisted the victims of Hurricane Katrina, 
it partnered with Habitat for Humanity and other partners on 
the ground, endeavoring to make sure that every penny spent 
went to the victims and not administrative overhead.  This is 
generally how Qatar approaches all foreign aid, and it's not 
unlike how most Americans make decisions regarding charitable 
giving. 
 
¶8. (S) Speaker Pelosi in May was unable to persuade the Amir 
to support the Palestinian Authority financially.  In his 
early January visit to Washington, HBJ made such a 
commitment, presumably understanding it is the price Qatar 
must pay for greater Qatari access in Washington.  The money 
has not been delivered, and HBJ confided to the Ambassador 
after his Washington visit it would be useful if Secretary 
Clinton (invited to the U.S.-Islami Forum, but not 
attending) could make a pitch to the Amir to seal the deal. 
 
¶9. (C) We encourage yu to ask the Amir to aid financially 
the Palestiian Authority, understanding that the Amir will 
ot cut off Hamas.  The Amir's personal views aside Qataris 
across the board do not accept that Hamas is a terrorist 
organization, and they continue to provide financial support 
to it.  The Amir believes that the Palestinian Authority 
(except for Abu Mazen and Fayyad) is corrupt.  You should 
expect to hear the Amir complain about this, while 
nonetheless taking pride in Qatar's relationship with Abu 
Mazen, who was a student in Qatar years ago. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
Qatar's Strategy of Balancing Competing Interests 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶10. (C) SAUDI ARABIA:  The Amir's family, the Al Thanis, have 
ruled Qatar for more than 140 years.  Given the small size of 
Qatar and a desire to stay in power, the Al Thani family does 
its best to stay on good terms with larger regional players 
such as Iran and Saudi Arabia.  The relationship with Riyadh 
had been strained following perceptions in the Kingdom that 
Al Jazeera's coverage of the Saudi royal family was 
unflattering, leading the Saudis a few years ago to pull 
their ambassador.  However, a Saudi ambassador returned to 
Doha about two years ago, and relations are generally 
improving after Qatar toned down criticism of the Saudi royal 
family on Al Jazeera. 
 
¶11. (S) IRAN:  The Qataris deeply distrust Iran and oppose 
that neighbor's nuclear weapons program.  But sharing the 
third largest natural gas reserves in the world with Iran 
obliges the Qatari leadership to maintain a "working 
relationship" with Tehran.  As an example of the balancing 
act Qatar plays with Iran -- and elsewhere -- Qatar will not 
close the one Iranian bank serving Qatar, as the Bush 
Administration asked.  Nor, however, will Qatar allow Iran to 
open additional banks, as we expect the Iranians would like. 
Instead, in classic Qatari fashion, the government announced 
it had granted permission to the sole operating Iranian bank 
to open a second branch -- on the same day former Treasury 
Secretary Paulson visited Doha in June 2008.  Such behavior 
does not satisfy either the U.S. or Iran, but it exemplifies 
how the Al Thani leadership tries to maintain balance between 
competing interests.  (Think also of Qatar's relations with 
Iran juxtaposed to the considerable U.S. military presence in 
Qatar.)  Since the 2009 Iranian presidential elections that 
resulted in protests, Qatar has stepped up visits by its 
senior officials to Tehran.  We assess Qatar's willingness to 
fulfill Iran's need for political engagement when others 
increasingly shun it as a reflection of Doha's desire to keep 
Tehran at bay and the natural gas flowing. 
 
¶12. (S) RELATIONS WITH BAD ACTORS:  Qatar's contacts with 
Hamas are consistent with the Amir's stated desire to have 
good relations with everyone.  The Qatari leadership also 
appears to calculate that maintaining relations with bad 
actors such as Hezbollah and the Iranians helps ensure 
Qatar's security by serving as an insurance policy against 
attack -- a real concern given Qatar's hosting of U.S. 
military personnel and the perception of this by extremist 
elements in the region. 
 
¶13. (S) RELATIONS WITH ISRAEL:  Up until January 2009, Israel 
maintained a quasi-diplomatic presence in Doha.  Qatar's 
"freezing" of Israel's Trade Office presence occurred in the 
wake of the failure by Qatar to achieve a quorum of Arab 
leaders for an Arab League Summit aimed at addressing the 
crisis in Gaza.  The subsequent Doha Summit on Gaza, attended 
by a large Arab and Palestinian contingent from the 
rejectionist camp, voted to break off ties with Israel as a 
protest over Gaza.  Qatar acted immediately; Mauritania 
later.  Having jettisoned their own policy of maintaining 
overt good relations with Israel, however, the Qataris are 
hoping for a gesture by the Israelis vis-a-vis the 
Palestinians that would allow Qatar to reverse itself with 
dignity and allow Israeli diplomats to return, according to 
HBJ. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
The Trend for Increased Diplomatic Activism by Qatar 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
¶14. (SBU) SUDAN:  Qatar's Minister of State for Foreign 
Affairs, Ahmed Al-Mahmoud, has played a central role in the 
Darfur peace process, alongside UN/African Union mediator 
Djibril Bassole.  Richard Williamson, special envoy for Sudan 
under the previous Administration, and current Special Envoy 
Scott Gration have both supported and encouraged Qatar's 
efforts. 
 
¶15. (SBU) Al-Mahmoud and Bassole were able to convince the 
Government of Sudan (GOS) and the Justice and Equality 
Movement (JEM), the strongest of the Darfuri armed movements, 
to sign a Goodwill Agreement in February 2009, even though 
talks collapsed in May over prisoner swaps and humanitarian 
access. 
 
¶16. (SBU) Momentum for Doha resumed in November, when 
Bassole's Joint Mediation and Support Team (JMST) organized a 
series of meetings in Doha between the parties and Darfuri 
civil society.  The armed movements, however, criticized the 
civil society process and claimed that the participants were 
hand-picked by the GOS.  The consultations Bassole and 
Al-Mahmoud planned to hold between civil society and the 
parties in Doha have yet to take place. 
 
¶17. (SBU) Bassole and Al-Mahmoud continue to hold periodic 
consultations between the armed movements and the GOS in 
Doha, although the prospects for success in this next round 
of talks are slim.  The GOS has warned that this will be the 
last round of negotiations it participates in and, deal or no 
deal, it will walk away in mid-March to concentrate on 
campaigning for the April elections. 
 
¶18. (SBU) JEM, citing its superior offensive capabilities, 
continues to complain that it should be the only armed 
movement at the table.  Abdel Wahid, the Paris-based leader 
of the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA), refuses to join the 
talks and continues to orchestrate attacks in the field on 
pro-Doha SLA factions.  The SLA groups that have assembled in 
Doha, with the help of the Special Envoy Gration and Libya, 
remain unwilling to enter direct negotiations until their 
movements formally unify the field.  All the while, Bassole 
has privately hinted to the international community that he 
plans to resign in the next few months and no successor is 
yet in view. 
 
¶19. (C) LESSONS FROM LEBANON:  Qatar's humanitarian-based 
initiative in Sudan came after its Amir and Prime Minister 
successfully mediated the Lebanese conflict in June 2008, to 
much acclaim in many parts of the region.  In doing so, the 
Qatari leadership reaffirmed its belief that Qatar's policy 
of having open doors across the ideological spectrum was 
important to promoting regional stability. 
 
¶20. (C) MEDIATION, NOT MILITARY MIGHT:  Considering Qatar's 
wealth, its growing confidence in mediating disputes, and the 
prestige that such involvement brings, we expect Qatar will 
continue to carve out a regional diplomatic role for itself 
in the coming years.  A few of Qatar's initiatives have 
foundered, including an effort (begun long before the recent 
troubles) to mediate a cease-fire between the Yemeni 
government and the Shi'a Houthi rebels in the north. 
Ethiopia also broke off diplomatic relations with Qatar when 
it tried to mediate disputes between it and neighboring 
Eritrea. 
 
¶21. (C) Qatar, with a population of fewer than 250,000 
citizens, will never be a military power.  Having its sights 
set on regional diplomacy and mediation is quite realistic, 
however.  What resources Qatar is putting into its military 
are aimed at providing airlift capacity for humanitarian 
interventions.  Qatar has taken possession of U.S.-supplied 
C-17 aircraft, and Qatar most recently used a C-17 to deliver 
humanitarian assistance to Haiti. 
 
------------- 
FOOD SECURITY 
------------- 
 
¶22. (SBU) In Embassy Doha's judgment, Qatar's food security 
policies and strategies reflect the rapidly growing intent by 
the Amir and Crown Prince to make food security a key 
national priority for Qatar, not just in terms of Qatar's own 
food security needs, but in terms of the food security needs 
of the Arab region. (HBJ supports having an active food 
security policy, as long as it has a strong commercial 
focus.) 
 
¶23. (SBU) That judgment stems from our conversations with 
Qatari government officials: 
 
-- While Qatar's National Food Security Program's (QNFSP) 
short-term focus is on the State of Qatar and building the 
domestic agricultural sector to diminish reliance on imports, 
the strategic goal of QNFSP is to export the technologies 
developed in Qatar to countries throughout the MENA region, 
and other areas with arid climates. 
 
-- Toward that end, some research results will be part of the 
public domain and available to everyone. Some technology 
transfer to poorer MENA nations will be donor-based, through 
the activities of the offices of the State Minister for 
International Cooperation. The third component of Qatar's 
strategic goal of exporting QNFSP technology will be more 
commercially based, and will employ public/private 
partnerships. 
 
---------- 
AL JAZEERA 
---------- 
 
¶24. (S) HBJ offered during his visit to Washington in January 
to send members of Al Jazeera's board of directors and 
management to Washington to engage with U.S. officials on Al 
Jazeera's coverage.  There are ample precedents for a 
bilateral dialogue on Al Jazeera as part of improving 
bilateral relations.  We addressed the case of Saudi Arabia 
earlier, but Tunisia and Jordan have also benefited from such 
a dialogue in recent months. 
 
--------------------------- 
The U.S.-Qatar Relationship 
--------------------------- 
 
¶25. (S) The breadth and depth of Qatar's relationship with 
the U.S. is impressive, especially for a country the size of 
Connecticut, with about two million inhabitants, of whom only 
about 225,000 are actually Qatari citizens. 
 
-- Because it is so small and its energy resources so large, 
Qatar now has an annual per capita income of over 60,000 USD 
(the highest in the world). 
 
-- Wealth has bolstered the country's political ambitions, 
leading to Qatari foreign policy initiatives that too often 
have been at odds with U.S. objectives.  Examples include 
Qatar's relations with Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria. 
 
-- Until recently, Qatar was not fully cooperative in 
intelligence sharing and combating terrorism financing, which 
also led to tensions with Washington. 
 
-- The U.S.-Qatari military relationship is solid.  Qatar 
provides the U.S. military exceptional access to two major 
Qatari military installations, Al Udaid Air Base and Camp 
As-Saliyeh -- two of CENTCOM's most important installations. 
Qatar charges us no rent, and in fact is funding over 700 
million USD in construction projects for the exclusive use of 
the U.S. military. 
 
-- The U.S.-Qatar economic relationship is vital.  U.S. 
energy companies have invested tens of billions of dollars in 
the oil and gas industry here.  Qatar, which holds the third 
largest natural gas reserves in the world after Iran and 
Russia, is expected to become later this year one of the most 
important suppliers of imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) 
to the U.S. market. 
 
-- Our educational and cultural relationship with Qatar is 
strong and growing.  Qatar has committed itself like few 
other Arab states to modernizing its educational system, and 
has turned decisively to the United States for help.  Qatar 
has imported branch campuses of six U.S. universities, 
including Texas A&M, Carnegie-Mellon, Weill-Cornell Medical 
School, Georgetown, Virginia Commonwealth, and Northwestern. 
At the elementary and secondary levels it is instituting a 
U.S. model of charter schools. 
 
-- Al Jazeera, the television network with an Arabic-speaking 
audience of some 60 million, is based in Qatar and funded by 
the State of Qatar.  The network's coverage, particularly by 
its Arabic service (there is also an English service, a 
children's channel, a public affairs channel and a number of 
sports channels) on issues important to the U.S., has long 
been an irritant in our bilateral relationship.  We 
nevertheless recognize the value of USG officials appearing 
on Al Jazeera in order to ensure that officials appearing on 
Al Jazeera are heard in the Arab world.  Because it is funded 
by the State of Qatar, Al Jazeera avoids critical reports on 
Qatar.  In any event, its Arabic service remains an important 
source of outreach to Arabic speakers around the world, 
especially on Israel and Palestinian issues.  We are happy to 
arrange an interview on Al Jazeera for you if you have 
interest and your time on the ground in Doha permits. 
 
 
Lebaron