Qatar’s many faces

As the Middle East continues to be buffeted by the winds of reform, both real and fictitious, one country seems have learned how to play the game of professed reform to better control its content: Qatar. In the last decade, the emirate, the world’s third largest producer of natural gas (after having invested heavily in the sector in the mid-1990s), has been portrayed as an Arab proponent of free minds and markets. However, Qatar’s politics have, in fact, been far more complex, and interesting. Like a latter-day Venice, the emirate has blended pragmatic amorality in its foreign affairs with an ability to play all sides in order to ensure its own prosperity, security and regime survivability. In April, the architect of Qatar’s political transformation, Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, hosted an international conference on democracy and free trade in Doha. Though the level of participation was less prominent than the