Reflecting on Qatar's "Islamist" Soft Power

Qatar has developed a reputation for engaging with and supporting Islamist groups around the Middle
East. This is not surprising and reflects the reality that on countless occasions in recent decades,
Qatar has engaged with a wide range of Islamist actors, from Hamas to a litany of groups in Syria
and Libya to the Taliban. Consequently, Qatar is sometimes viewed as a closeted Islamist actor itself,
as if the state’s leadership harbors a plan to spread religious doctrine wherever and however it can.
The truth, however, is far more prosaic. The best explanation for the facts at hand is that Qatar is
a pragmatic actor that wants—like all states—to maximize its influence. With abundant financial
resources, but limited human resources, Qatar’s leaders have relied on personal links and speculative
bouts of support to various intermediaries as a key foreign policy modus operandi. This often led Qatar
to support groups related to the Muslim Brotherhood. But this less reflected state preference than
it simply reflected the world as Qatar found it. The Brotherhood was, in a practical sense, a sensible
organization with which to forge ties: large, well developed, and multinational. Add to this the fact that
Qatar’s elite—unlike many in the region—see the Brotherhood as a perfectly reasonable organization
to engage with, and the state’s policy was obvious. But, in the post-Arab Spring world, the range of
groups deemed palatable by some key states has shifted decisively. Consequently, Qatar’s Islamist
connections are castigated as outlandish and beyond the pale when they have actually been quite
normal for most Arab states in recent decades.