On March 10, President Joe Biden declared Qatar to be a major non-NATO ally. It took less than two weeks for the tiny Persian Gulf emirate — a country with fewer citizens than Lincoln, Nebraska, has people — to embarrass the president gratuitously.
Major non-NATO ally status should not just be a diplomatic bauble, although that is how Biden’s team treats it. Instead, the designation allows countries preferentially to receive U.S. military hardware and depleted uranium ammunition. Put aside the fact that Qatar outsources most of its security to non-Qataris; even if not, there would be very little reason why the country would ever need the types of military benefits Biden now bestows. For the past several years, Qatar’s greatest military relationships have been with Turkey, to whom it provides a base, Hamas, and the Taliban.
In the wake of Biden’s gift, Qatar invited Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to the Doha International Maritime Defense Exhibition and Conference. The U.S.-designated terrorist group displayed models of its missiles. The exhibit in Qatar came after the Revolutionary Guard launched missiles from a base inside Iran that struck the U.S. Consulate compound in Erbil, Iraq, and shortly after Yemeni Houthis fired Iranian-provided rockets and drones at a fuel depot outside Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. There is simply no way to interpret the Qatari behavior as anything other than relishing America’s humiliation. It is also a giant Qatari middle finger directed at international efforts to reconcile the emirate and its Gulf Arab neighbors.
The elevation of Qatar’s status falls within a growing Biden administration pattern of declaring new policies, often for political or personal reasons, without any appreciation for their ramifications. This was the case with Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s delisting of Yemen’s Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization. Blinken appeared not to understand the factual basis for the Houthi designation. Instead, he allowed his personal animosity toward former President Donald Trump, under whom the designation occurred, to motivate his actions. The same was true with the Biden administration’s initial, bizarre waiver of penalties on Nord Stream 2, Germany’s ill-thought-out pipeline that increased Russian leverage over Europe. Biden and Blinken’s lifting, waiving, and non-enforcement of sanctions on Iran fall into the same pattern. Doing the opposite of Trump is justification enough, no matter that the new policy promises to resource the very groups launching drones and missiles against neighbors, financing terror attacks, and placing bounties and targeting Americans.
Perhaps ego and naivete motivate the Biden team’s Iran decision: ego because so many within the Biden administration owe their careers to the Iran deal, and naivete because they really believe their power of persuasion trumps the ideology of their adversaries.
It does not explain Qatar, however.
Unfortunately, the Qatar deal has a whiff of corruption to it: There is no progressive political constituency for Qatar in the way there is for embracing Iran or punishing Saudi Arabia. Nor with the increasing frequency of White House clean-ups of Biden’s pronouncements does it appear the 79-year-old Biden is truly in command. Blinken and his deputy, Wendy Sherman; national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his deputy, Jon Finer; and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines each joined political advisory firms and consultancies between periods of government service, effectively helping foreign governments or their proxy firms navigate Washington using the relationships they developed while in government. Qatar blacklists those who contradict its interests. Whether a motivating factor or not, Biden’s top advisers can expect lucrative post-government contracts to reward them for essentially laundering money for Qatar and its terrorist and extremist associations.
Hopefully, this is not their motivating factor. Regardless, Americans and victims of terrorism deserve an explanation as to why Qatar is a major non-NATO ally, all the more so after its Revolutionary Guard missile stunt. If team Biden cannot offer a good answer, it’s time to reverse the designation.
Michael Rubin (@mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
