How Qatar uses Al Jazeera and the Muslim Brotherhood to buy influence in the West

Welcome back, you’re watching episode 3 of the Qatar Files right here on NewsX. Today we expose Qatar’s propaganda machines that are operating at a much larger and more sophisticated level than people could have imagined. A country that is regionally alienated and faces stiff opposition from the Saudi-led bloc for supporting and funding terrorism now uses its unlimited wealth to shape foreign opinion and buy allies through soft influence. How does Qatar use its media networks and other means to buy support from the West and get away with its terror funding? To break this down, we have with us David Reaboi, author of Qatar’s Shadow War.

David, appreciate you taking out the time and speaking with us. It’s a very important discussion that we have at hand. The first question that comes to my mind is, can you tell us about your book, Qatar’s Shadow War, in detail?

So I wrote my book, Qatar’s Shadow War, about the efforts by the tiny Gulf Islamist emirate to influence U.S. policy, specifically through media, think tanks and the like. It’s a case study in the infrastructure of influence in the United States.

Right. David, you claim that Qatar successfully built an influence operation network in America. What is this network all about and how does this operate? Tell us.

Well, the influence network that Qatar built over the course really of decades, but specifically in the last couple of years, involves creating a media environment and a kind of a government media complex, government media think tank complex environment, where everyone is saying the same things and the Qatari position is taken uncritically. And Qatar’s enemies are relentlessly attacked. And its kind of nefarious agenda is mocked or brushed under the carpet.

And we see the latest example with the case of retired four-star General John Allen, who used to work in Qatar when he used to head U.S. Central Command based out of Qatar. And then he went to work for Brookings, which is the recipient of tens of millions in Qatari money. It turns out that he was taking money and working directly for the Qataris to advance their interests in Washington, D.C. as an unregistered lobbyist, which is illegal. The latest news on that is he was kind of pushed out of Brookings, he was forced to resign. But I don’t think in this case necessarily that the system worked. The system was supposed to catch people like this, when in fact it turns out that it looks like it was a whistleblower who saw that the statute of limitations on this is going to expire and just put it out there so there’ll be a record for this. Because Allen, it turns out, was the only one involved in this scheme who never faced legal scrutiny until now. And to this day, the U.S. Department of Justice has not taken action on them.

Right. That’s incredible information, David. And also tell us about who are the primary targets of the Qatari influence in the United States.

Qatar’s enemies in the region would be Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel, with a small asterisk including Egypt as well. So really, it was in the summer of 2017, many of Qatar’s neighbors got together and decided that they’d had enough of Qatar’s efforts to try to undermine them and topple their regimes. Al Jazeera was a primary motivating force. It was a primary engine of what we call in the West the Arab Spring. And that was really Al Jazeera being used as an instrument of the Qatari government to foment revolutions throughout the region. And of course Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Egypt.

David, also tell us what role does Qatari state media, specifically Al Jazeera, play in its information warfare today?

Sure. Al Jazeera plays a big part in Qatar’s information warfare strategy. It may even play the biggest part. On its own, it is one of the largest media networks in the world. It’s being seen by tens, if not hundreds of millions of people throughout the Arab-speaking world. That’s not to mention its efforts in the United States and elsewhere throughout Europe, throughout Asia, being broadcast in English. And really what it was able to do was, it was all around the world. So, for example, Al Jazeera coverage in English influenced the U.S. government in 2011 to oppose its longtime ally, Hosni Mubarak, in Egypt. In the same year, a few months later, Al Jazeera coverage convinced the U.S. government and the English government to intervene in Libya. It’s case after case. People watch what they see on Al Jazeera, real news, and they respond to it. And this is just how it’s been. And it’s a tremendous tool for the Qataris to use to create the reality that they want to create. And then that reality creates and urges different actions on the parts of world leaders and business leaders and things like that.

David, let’s also talk about the Muslim Brotherhood. What is it and how does the Qatari state help the Brotherhood in spreading its ideology?

The Muslim Brotherhood is the largest modern Islamist movement in the world. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt. And since then, it has really moved all around the world into just about every country, and especially in the West. And the Qatari state sort of made a deal for legitimacy with the Muslim Brotherhood many decades ago. And it became, through its massive natural gas wealth, the largest patron of the Brotherhood globally. And we see kind of one hand washing the other. We see the branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in different states, especially in the West, advancing the interests of Qatar. And then we also see Qatar advancing the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood in the same places, specifically when it comes to the war on Saudi Arabia, the war on India, the war on the Emirates, or Israel, or the Egyptian government, et cetera.

We see these two things going hand in hand. And this really goes back to the 1960s, when the Muslim Brotherhood was kicked out of Egypt and needed a place to go. Many of the leadership went to Europe, and many of the leadership actually went to places like Qatar and Saudi Arabia. And to this day, they’ve been evicted from most places in the Middle East. The Saudis did a good job with it. The Emiratis did a good job with it, as did the Egyptians. But really, Qatar is where they’ve been able to run free. The chief jurist of the Muslim Brotherhood, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, is probably the most famous person living in Qatar. He had a big show on Al Jazeera for many, many years called Sharia and Life, and he is an honored guest of the Qatari regime. You cannot really separate the Brotherhood and Qatar.

David, those are good points. Also tell us, how elaborate and dangerous is Qatar’s information warfare mechanism, and how do we counter it?

Qatar’s information and influence operations are elaborate and dangerous, but it’s very difficult to counter in a free society. And obviously, from one country to the next, the solutions will be varied, and really based on the acuteness of the problem. I mean, in the United States, there’s a couple of things that we can do right away. You know, we won’t do them, but we should be doing them. For example, top number one would be to make sure that Al Jazeera actually does register as a foreign influence operation. This has been on the books for a number of years now, but they just haven’t done it, and there’s nobody forcing them to do it. The Department of Justice is not on their case to do it. They just decided we’re not going to do it, and that’s good enough for the Justice Department.

Number two would be to finally move U.S. Central Command out of Qatar. I mean, this is one of the huge vulnerabilities that the United States has in terms of influence. We also have a similar situation in Turkey. We have these massive bases, these forward operating bases in different places in the world. And I’m not saying they’re not needed. I’m not saying they’re not required. But every time we do this, we are a guest of the host nation. The host nation really loves to have us there because it gets to exert influence over U.S. decision making, specifically the military’s decision making, which is quite pernicious. We saw this with General Allen. Once you go through the expense of creating a massive city with an unbelievable amount of logistics and military hardware and money and people all pushed into a place, you’ve built this thing. Well, now you’ve built this thing and you can’t really move it easily. And the priority becomes, how do we safeguard this thing? And that’s the situation we’re in when it comes to Qatar and the airbase.

And as a matter of fact, one of the emails from General Allen shows that he was instructing the Qataris to put leverage on the United States over using the airbase. So this is a vulnerability that everyone understands and everyone knows about. And I mean, if I had my way, I would move that airbase to a place like the United Arab Emirates, where we have much better relations, where there’s a much better government policy there when it comes to Islamists. And it’s much easier in terms of our foreign policy goals. So that’s what I would do. Those are the two things that I would do. The third thing is I would declare the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization, which the UAE did in, I think, you know, 2011, quite rightly. Many other governments have done the same. I’m not sure if India today still considers the Brotherhood a terror organization, but it really should, because it is a key part, if not the key part, of that Islamist infrastructure.

Right. Absolutely, David. And also, recent research into transactions of Qatar’s state-run Eid Charity has proven that they have links with the Muslim Brotherhood regimes, the Hamas and even offshoots of al-Qaeda. Why is the world silent on Qatar’s role in funding terrorism for so long?

Well, I think it’s what we’ve been discussing. The reason for that is what we’ve been discussing this whole time, which is just that the Qatari network of influence is very strong. And that goes from influencing media and think tanks and government, you know, all the way to just buying people. I mean, we saw with General Allen, the scope of this is pretty ridiculous and massive. If you think about it, this is the highest ranking general, the guy who ran the Afghanistan war, the guy who ran the Iraq war for a time for the U.S. government, and is at the head of, or was at the head of, America’s largest and most influential think tank, non-governmental organization. I mean, this guy is a big deal. And he was absolutely in the pocket of the Qatari government. And he was scoring wins all over the place just because he’s got his relationships. You know, someone in that position knows everybody, can walk into any office in Washington, D.C. and at least get a fair hearing. And this is, I mean, it’s a tremendous, tremendous problem. And I’m just glad that whoever at the FBI decided that the American people needed to know this. I think that person is a kind of hero, because the U.S. government would very much like to bury this story, especially the Biden administration would love to bury this story.

David, I appreciate you taking out the time and speaking with us and giving us those insightful details about this very important conversation.