September 15, 2014 | Quote
Why Does Qatar Support Hamas?
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Backing Islamists in the long run was a losing bet, said Jonathan Schanzer, the vice president for research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He noted the ouster last year of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the turning tide against insurgents in Syria, as well as with international disgust at the actions of Islamist extremists in Iraq.
“They’re like the drunk guy at the casino putting down bad bet after bad bet,” he said in an interview, referring to Qatar.
Schanzer, testifying before Congress last week, counseled pressuring Qatar through sanctions that target individuals and entities. The United States has three bases in Qatar, one of which houses the forward base of the U.S. Central Command — a status that is more important to the militarily weak emirate than it is to the U.S., according to Schanzer.
“It’s hard to justify a base several miles from where the Taliban had an embassy, from Khaled Meshal’s headquarters and from where Al Jazeera is hammering the United States,” he told JTA.
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