◆ Brief background on Qatar
Until recently, Qatar has managed to play a complex role in the Gulf as a small, very rich, Sunni-Arab sheikdom, with a citizen population of just 250,000-300,000 plus some two million “ex-pats” (the majority workers from South Asia on term contracts).
Qatar, ruled by its monarchy, has until recently managed to navigate in such a way that it worked both sides of the geopolitical street. 
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Between Two Worlds, Playing a Double Game
◆ On the one hand it takes part in the modern, Western-oriented, liberal world order.
It hosts a vast U.S. airbase and related anti-terrorism facilities.
It has created and funded Education City, an enclave for a half-dozen major American universities.
Its national airline, Qatar Airways, has become one of the Gulf giants, challenging the legacy carriers of the US and Europe.
And it continues to export vast quantities of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from its huge reserves — the largest of which it shares with Iran.
◆ On the other hand, it
- Has long supported the Muslim Brotherhood, which other Sunni regimes see as a threat.
- Maintains very close working relations with Iran.
- Is widely alleged to be the source of funding for terrorism.
- Hosts and funds Al-Jazeera, whose programming Egypt and Saudi Arabia see as a threat, and
- Hosts Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a highly-influential militant Muslim scholar whose program on Al-Jazeera has a wide audience throughout the region, and who has justified suicide terrorism (“heroic martyrdom operations”), and justified domestic violence against women as well as female genital mutilation.
For more on Sheikh Yush Al-Qaradawi, see this profile at the Investigative Project (link here).
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Why Are the Saudis, Egyptians, and Emirates taking on Qatar now?
◆ In an increasingly fraught Middle East, with Iran increasingly seen as the predominant regional threat, Qatar’s big neighbor, Saudi Arabia, along with Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain, and other Sunni states now have found this an opportune time to rein in their troublesome Gulf neighbor.
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◆ Additional Readings, setting the Qatar Crisis in the context
Eran Lerman’s essay (link here) provides an incisive treatment of this issue. It is up-to-date and deeply-informed. (BESA, the Begin-Sadat Institute, Bar-Ilan University, Israel)
The Qataris have been playing a dangerous game for years. They have provocatively supported the Muslim Brotherhood and actively promoted the destabilization of existing regimes, using huge sums of money as well as the pernicious influence of Al Jazeera TV. The dramatic steps taken against them over the past few days are thus hardly surprising, but they shed some light on the present stage in the struggle for regional hegemony. –Eran Lerman
◆ Yaakov Amidror writes a complementary essay (link here, also at BESA) arguing the Qatar crisis is a sign of weakness in the Sunni Arab world.
The fact that the Sunni Arab world was unable to impose its basic approach on a small peninsular emirate is indicative of the deep crisis brewing in the Gulf over the lack of real leadership in the Sunni world.
Sunnis are the vast majority in the Muslim world, making up some 85% of Muslims – and yet somehow, the Iran-led Shiite minority is the driving force behind the processes moving the Middle East. –Yaakov Amidror
◆ Michael Rubin, writing at Commentary, urges the US to “Support the Anti-Qatari Coalition: A Long-Overdue Epiphany on Terrorism”
The simple fact is that Qatar supports destablizing, radical movements across the region. –Michael Rubin
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Robert Lieber, a professor at Georgetown, is one of the country’s leading analysts of US foreign policy, with special interests in the Middle East, Europe, and energy.
His most recent book is Retreat and Its Consequences: American Foreign Policy and the Problem of World Order (Cambridge University Press).
His comments appeared to take the White House by surprise.
Ex-FBI Director James Comey has privately told members of Congress that he had a frosty exchange with Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch last year when he confronted her about possible political interference in the Hillary Clinton email investigation after showing Lynch a sensitive document she was unaware the FBI possessed, according to sources who were directly briefed on the matter. –Circa
The Democrats are in attack mode.
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Israel has approved a request by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to cut by roughly a third the electricity it provides to the Gaza Strip.
British foreign minister Boris Johnson has been asked by five other ministers to launch a bid to replace Theresa May as the country’s prime minister after she failed to win a parliamentary majority in an election last week, the Sunday Times reported. (
The Daily Mail, an anti-immigrant, nationalist tabloid that has spent the past year cheering on May, published a photo of a graven-faced prime minister along with the headline “Tories Turn on Theresa.”
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LA Times headline: 
Refugee charities are paying people smugglers to ferry migrants to their rescue boats patrolling off Libya, it was claimed last night.
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Stephens’ concludes the essay powerfully, with a reference to a true peacemaker, Egypt’s Anwar Sadat:
If the United States withdraws from the accord, it would find itself in farcically lonely company. The pact was signed by 195 countries, with only Nicaragua and Syria bowing out. . . . Some climate experts actually suggest that, given Trump’s steady dismantling of environmental protections, it’s better for the United States to leave the pact altogether than to undermine it from within.
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Pres. Trump is saying “we are back and we oppose Iran.”
When French voters resoundingly elected a centrist president rather than a right-leaning antiglobalist this month, one reason may have been the nation’s news media.
The UN health agency blows around $200 million a year on travel costs so its honchos can fly business class and stay in five-star hotels — more than what it reserves for battling some of the world’s biggest health crisis, the AP reports. –NY Post
Ron Radosh lacerates Pres. Obama for releasing the miscreant, de Blasio for honoring him, and the NY Times for papering over the evil:
In a sign of the vigor of the party’s distaste for the president, outgoing party Chair John Burton, a longtime Democratic lawmaker and powerbroker known for his blunt and profane manner, extended two middle fingers in the air as the crowd cheered and joined him.
Comment: 
How? Because fewer people might be employed in health care. They report devastating numbers in manufacturing in Ohio and then say, well, treating people for illnesses has softened the blow to employment.
Warren Buffett: I’m a ‘broken record’ on the US economy, we’re stuck at 2% growth 
rian civil war has left more than 400,000 people dead, among them graveyards full of children and innocent noncombatants. About half the country’s 23 million people have been left homeless, and of those, 4 million have been driven abroad (some of them contributing to Europe’s refugee crisis and its consequent rightward political shift). The war occurred for many complex reasons, including social and political ones. The severest drought in recorded modern Syrian history in 2007–10, however, made its contribution. –Juan Cole
Hat Tip: Daniel Pipes and Campus Watch. 
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis slammed Iran as a destabilizing influence, particularly in Yemen, during a visit to Saudi Arabia. “Everywhere you look, if there’s trouble in the region, you find Iran,” Mattis told reporters.
The sheer fun of reading a slash-and-burn column. 
Kori Ali Muhammad has admitted killing three people–he was caught in the act–and said he wanted to kill more “white people.”
Comment: 
Coptics are the largest branch of Christianity in North Africa and the Middle East, including Egypt. The exact number in Egypt is disputed. Estimates range from 6 million to 20 million. There are about 80 million Egyptians, making it the largest Arab country. (Like many non-democratic states, Egypt is not eager to count various social groups, fearing the political impact when the true numbers become known.)
Organizationally, the Coptic Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria has jurisdiction over all Africa, which is why the terrorist bombings in that city carry special significance for all Christians in the region–and for Islamists who wish to drive Christianity out of its historic home in the Middle East. In fact, the Coptic Pope had just completed a service in one of the churches bombed.