Mohammed Al-Hammadi

By : Mohammed Al-Hammadi

:: Anyone who is more biased to a country other than his homeland or submits to a stranger is the one who loses out. Any state that goes hand in hand with foreigner against its brothers and neighbors is also at a loss.

Qatar’s crisis has revealed several crises which the Gulf intellectual and Arab intellectual suffer from. Some of these crises are related to specifying priorities, stop making mistakes, understanding the geographic surrounding and differentiating between the enemy and the friend and between those who wish well and others who wish evil. There are other crises pertaining to loyalties and affiliations and to visions and stances. This is in addition to crises pertaining to reasoning, understanding interests and arranging options, such as what comes first, money or the homeland?

It’s such a real and huge crisis that the Gulf has seen nothing like and may see nothing like. It showed us a lot as it’s only through it that we learnt things we would not have learnt through compliments. There are many details we would not have realized if we had kept silent over Qatar’s destructive role in the region and the world and if the four countries hadn’t made their decision to boycott Doha or if they hadn’t announced the real reasons they decided to boycott it. If none of this happened, we would still be deceived by Qatar and its command which showed us that the affairs of Gulf and Arab countries are the least of its concerns and that it’s been working to serve the interest of their enemies or rather to serve the interest of anyone who has ambitions in the region.

A swamp of conspiracy

Qatar is involved, or actually drowned, in a swamp of conspiracy against its brothers and neighbors. This is why the scandal shocked the Qataris more than it shocked the rest of the world. Instead of stopping what it’s doing, Qatar chose to be stubborn and arrogant and decided to keep walking down this wrong path.

Its submission went as far as requesting from the Iranian regime to let it open its embassy in Tehran. Less than two years after summoning its envoy in Iran following the attacks on the Saudi embassy in Tehran and the consulate in Mashhad, Doha decided to return its envoy without providing details or making clarifications. The logical explanation is that after its relations with its neighbors and brothers went bad, Qatar started to get closer to Iran and submitted to it. Doha also hopes to enhance bilateral relations with it in all fields while losing the Gulf.

What kind of policy is this? What sovereignty does Qatar speak of? Who benefits from this step which even the Iranians mocked? Mustafa Abdali, an Iranian political analyst, warned of rapprochement with Qatar and called on his government not to forget that Qatar supports terrorism!

Qatar’s understanding of regional affairs is shallow, as Doha has taken foolish decisions, such as reopening the Iranian embassy. Is this a logical move?

:: Mohammed Al-Hammadi is the Editor-in-Chief of Al Ittihad newspaper and Executive Director of editing and publishing at the Abu Dhabi Media Company. He founded and was Editor-in-Chief of the Arabic edition of National Geographic magazine, and has held numerous positions in journalism since joining Al Ittihad in 1994. Al-Hammadi has been a columnist for more than 15 years, including writing a daily column for seven years and producing a weekly political column in Al Ittihad since 2001. He has also worked as a parliamentary editor for seven years, covering the proceedings of the Federal National Council in the United Arab Emirates. In addition to being an active participant on social networks, Al-Hammadi has an interest in new media and is currently working on a project to ease the transition from traditional to digital and smart media. Al-Hammadi has received numerous awards and is a member of a number of organizations and federations. He features regularly in broadcast media as a regional political commentator and has authored several books including Time of Ordeal (2008), The UAE Democracy (2009) and The Fall of the Muslim Brotherhood (2016). Twitter: @MEalhammadi

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