After two months, the crisis between Qatar and its larger Gulf neighbors shows no signs of resolution. The stalemate may endure for some time, with significant costs to all parties. But it’s worth considering other possible outcomes and how to avoid or encourage those alternatives.
In early June, the Arab Gulf region was roiled when Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, along with Bahrain and Egypt, launched an aggressive political and economic attack on Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism, engaging Iran and undermining stability in the region through its sponsorship of Al Jazeera, the feisty media operation based in Doha. The four countries initiated a precedent-setting blockade of the small island state, disrupting the region’s partly integrated trade, labor and social networks.
It took two weeks for the “blockading countries,” as Qatar refers to them, to come up with a list of 13 demands. Kuwait, another member of the Gulf Cooperation Council, stepped forward to mediate the crisis, but Qatar adamantly rejected the initial conditions for normalizing ties, as well as subsequent formulations by the Saudi-led contingent.