In the horrendous battle over Syria, one big question is Qatar’s role. Supposedly the Syrian conflict is due to the horrid behavior of the Bashar al-Assad regime, the people rose up in rebellion against that behavior, and the fighting has spiraled out of control. The rise of ISIS is therefore due to the power vacuum formed because the Syrian government really doesn’t control its territory.
Elsewhere I’ve written up a theory that the real cause is a conflict between Qatar and Iran over a massive natural gas field in the Persian Gulf – and specifically, the routing of competing pipeline proposals for bringing that natural gas to Europe. Syria’s territory is the natural route for both pipelines, but Syria’s government is supporting the Iranian proposal, causing a coalition that included Qatar to want to topple Syria’s government in order to get a different result. Further, the US and Russia are on opposite sides of this conflict. And the real root cause is our collective addiction to fossil fuels.
The following interview is al Jazeera asking Qatar’s foreign minister about Qatar’s activity in Syria.
My take on this is that the foreign minister is lying up a storm in the interview. However, the interviewer was well prepared with some facts with which he could expose the foreign minister.
Such as.. Qatar says they want Democracy in Syria. But, the interviewer engaged him in a conversation about Democracy in Qatar which is essentially nonexistent. That is, while local city governments in Qatar are elected, the top leadership is not. The foreign minister kept prevaricating around different definitions of Democracy, to dodge the truth.
Suggesting that Qatar’s goal isn’t democracy, but is something else.
Another important point brought up is that at least one of the groups Qatar funds in Syria was proved to have committed atrocious war crimes. Mowing down whole families and more. The foreign minister dismissed the claims, but as I said his whole demeanor is of a slippery character who is lying.
Qatar’s goal in Syria isn’t democracy – that’s my conclusion from this interview.
