Qatar’s high-profile diplomacy usually solicits a mixture of annoyance and envy in the Arab world, where neighbours assume Doha is stealing the limelight to further its own prestige and undermine theirs.
These days, however, the willingness of the small Gulf state, population 1.6m, to take the lead on the Libya crisis, almost single-handedly providing the Arab cover for an international military intervention in the Arab world, is met with relief.
The most senior Arab official at this week’s London conference on Libya’s future was Hamad bin Jassem, the prime minister of Qatar. The only Arab state to have recognised Libya’s opposition national council in Benghazi and to have sent aircraft – though only four jets – to police the no-fly zone is Qatar. It is also the government that will soon be helping sell oil from eastern Libya.
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