Qatar: Small State, Big Politics (20 page)

Hamad also had a strong support base within the armed forces thanks to his reputation, however mythologized, as a war hero. He had commanded a mobile battalion during the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf War and had been responsible for the liberation of the Saudi town of Khafji.
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His efforts to modernize the armed forces had won him much popularity among Qatari military commanders.

After the 1992 cabinet reshuffle, Hamad was widely perceived to be running the country. During the next three years, until he formally assumed power, there were considerable tensions between Hamad and Khalifa, who retained control over the country’s finances.
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While Khalifa was in Geneva in June 1995, Hamad informed him that he was no longer the emir and would not be allowed back into the country. Hamad had earlier secured support from most senior members of the Al Thanis and—following the dispatch to Washington of one of his trusted cousins, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim—the support of the United States in overthrowing his father. Hamad bin Jassim later assumed the positions of foreign minister and prime minister.

In a brief television appearance, Hamad told his countrymen: “I am not happy with what has happened, but it had to be done and I had to do it.” Khalifa for his part denounced the “an abnormal behaviour of an ignorant man” and reminded Qataris that “I am still their legitimate emir, whether it is for the royal family, for the people, or for the army and I will return home whatever it costs.”
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Senior sheikhs and other family members soon gave
bay’a
to the new emir, whose cabinet, formed two weeks after the coup, included thirteen Al Thanis.
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An attempted coup in February 1996 to restore the former emir to power fizzled out with the arrest of a group of men at the border with Saudi Arabia.

Once in power, Hamad moved quickly to consolidate power within an inner circle of trusted family members. In one of his first official acts, the new emir decreed a change to the country’s constitution limiting the line of succession to his sons. By thus codifying succession through the constitution, in one stroke Hamad eliminated a whole host of uncles, cousins, and brothers as potential contenders to the throne. He then retired or otherwise marginalized many of the older Al Thanis whom he suspected of loyalty to his father—and to his father’s more relaxed approach to Qatar’s future—and steadily replaced them with younger and more ambitious Qataris with ideals closer to his and on whose loyalty he could more reliably count. These types of appointments have continued well into Hamad’s reign. In a cable sent to Washington around 2009–2010, the US embassy in Doha noted the rise to power of “a new generation of capable, Western-educated and energetic Qataris whose role in influencing and shaping foreign policy we expect to increase.”
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Some of these appointments of younger, highly educated Qataris included the minister of state for international cooperation, Khaled Al Attiyah, and the PM’s new foreign policy adviser Sheikh Mohammed Al Thani, the youngest son of the emir.

The burgeoning state bureaucracy continues to open up new venues for royal patronage and for incorporating newly emerging elites into the orbit of the state. While a relatively recent phenomenon, as early as the 1980s and 1990s the Al Thanis’ dominance of the key positions within the state ranks among the highest across the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
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Within a short few years, Hamad had placed enough trusted family members and allies in key institutions to feel secure in his reign. Some of the emir’s trusted allies and relatives, who often simultaneously hold multiple salaried positions in the state machinery and on the boards of several organizations, have enjoyed remarkable durability in their official government positions. Abdullah Al Attiyah, one of the regime’s key figures and the emir’s cousin, has for example at various times served as minister of energy and industry (1992–2011), deputy prime minister (2007–), and head of the Emiri Diwan, the emir’s executive office (2011). He has also served as the director of Qatar Petroleum and on a number of other corporate boards. Yousef Hussain Kamal, the minister of finance since 1998, has—according to a Qatari website—some thirty-three other additional, mostly paid positions in state agencies and private organizations.
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The emir’s children, especially those born to Skeikha Moza, occupy positions of particular importance: Tamim is the heir apparent; Hind is the emir’s chief of staff; Mayassa runs the high-profile Museums Authority; and Mohammad (b. 1988), who successfully ran the Qatar 2022 Bid committee, is often mentioned as a future foreign minister or heir apparent, or both. In the process, the emir has managed to impose a measure of discipline and unity within the family that has been unprecedented in Qatari history. In fact, one of the major political accomplishments of Hamad’s reign has been to bring cohesion and order into internal family politics.

Insofar as the institution of the monarchy and the larger system are concerned, ruling families play several key functions. Members of the ruling families continue to hold the
majlis
in which citizens can have an audience and present complaints.
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This enables the ruler to survey the opinion of key elites, solicit their support, and cement his ties with them. To this day, Hamad holds regular audiences with ordinary Qataris in the Emiri Diwan executive offices, during which attendees can present petitions. At the same time, the family acts as “a large intelligence-gathering network” through which information is collected and is circulated at the highest levels.
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For analytical purposes, the Al Thanis can be divided into three broad, overlapping groups. The first group includes an inner circle of top policymakers, made up of a handful of individuals. Among them, several decision makers comprising the leadership of what may be conceived as Qatar, Inc. stand out. These individuals include the emir; his son Tamim, who is the deputy emir and heir apparent; Sheikha Moza, the emir’s second wife and officially his consort; Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah, the emir’s childhood friend and current deputy prime minister and minister of energy and industry; and Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, the prime minister. With the emir as the supreme overseer of the whole operation, each of the other four individuals has assumed responsibility for a different and distinct area. United by multilayered personal, financial, and political ties, they collectively form the policymaking inner circle responsible for articulating and overseeing the country’s domestic, foreign, energy, financial, and security policies.

A man of considerable physical stature, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa is loud and gregarious, resembling more a prankster favorite uncle than the calculating politician with finely honed political instinct that he is. Doha is unique in Middle Eastern capitals for its paucity of larger-than-life portraits of the emir hung by the municipality on every street corner and roundabout, betraying the comparatively low-key—and politically highly astute—nature of the emir’s personalized rule. Instead, Sheikh Hamad is often spotted in the city driving an old Land Cruiser, or smoking the shisha at a favorite hangout in the
souq
, or, when the weather permits, unassumingly strolling with Sheikha Moza among other Friday night window shoppers in one of Doha’s growing open-air markets. Though his powers are unrivalled in the land, and his wealth imagined as astronomical, Sheikh Hamad remains a man of the people, an emir who personifies the romanticized image of the Arab ruler who is at once gracious and magnanimous, just and down-to-earth, worldly and wise, visionary but keenly aware of his past. Compared to his counterparts next door—be it the outlandishly image-conscious rulers of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, or the less-than-beloved emir of Kuwait, the unpopular king of Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia’s aloof and distant ruler—the emir of Qatar appears to be much more genuinely loved by the couple of hundred thousand subjects he has, and the unease that the country’s rapid social changes has unleashed among the more conservative quarters of Qatari society has yet to be directed at him personally.

By far the second most visible face of the Qatari state after the emir is Sheikha Moza.
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A woman of impressive intellect and drive, Sheikha Moza primarily concerns herself with the domestic arena, focusing in particular on education, culture, and medical care. As the chairperson of the Qatar Foundation, Sheikha Moza has overseen the introduction and expansion of American-style higher education in Qatar, the undertaking of several cultural initiatives such as the assembling of the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, and the building of a new, $2.3 billion medical facility named Sidra. She has also encouraged reforms at Qatar University and in the country’s biggest hospital, Hamad Medical Corporation. According to her website,

Her highness shares the Emir’s vision to make Qatar a prosperous, developed and sustainable society. She has been instrumental in setting up centers of excellence to enhance opportunities for the people of Qatar and to build the nation’s resources in regard to education, science, community development, health and other areas. She is also actively involved in preserving and protecting Qatar’s cultural heritage…

In all aspects of her work, Her Highness is guided by her faith in Islam, dedication to the Emir’s vision for the future, a deep respect for traditional values, and a commitment to the highest possible standards.

The website reiterates Sheikha Moza’s “commitment to progressive education and community welfare in Qatar and her strong advocacy for closer relations between the Islamic world and the West.”
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Moreover, since the early 2000s Sheikha Moza has emerged as an international personality, the face not just of modern Qatar but also of the modern Arab woman. Self-assured and confident, she is one of the few wives of contemporary Middle Eastern rulers with highly visible public profiles.
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Younger Qatari women get their cues from her not just on fashion and attire, for which she is universally praised and admired, but, more important, on how to navigate the modern world by reconciling the often irreconcilable demands of tradition and modernity, family expectations and personal aspirations, individual expressions and social strictures.

Somewhat less visible and only slightly less influential is Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah, a maternal cousin and close friend and confidante of the emir since childhood and one of his most trusted and loyal advisers. In a 2011 cabinet reshuffle, Al Attiyah became the director of the Emiri Diwan, reportedly in order to oversee important changes in the emir’s executive offices. Known for his fierce loyalty to the emir, Al Attiyah is the chief architect of Qatar’s oil and gas policy, which is the cornerstone of the country’s frantic drive toward development domestically, and survival, recognition, and respect internationally. Qatar’s oil and gas policies are especially critical elements in its relations with Iran and Saudi Arabia. With Iran, the sharing of the lucrative North Field/South Pars gas field leaves open the chronic possibility of friction. In relation to Saudi Arabia, Qatar has already used its gas reserves, through the Dolphin project, to supply gas to the UAE and Oman in order to strengthen its ties with them at the expense of Saudi Arabia.
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Another key member of the policymaking inner circle is Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani. The emir’s trust in his prime minister is based more on respect for his professional judgment and his tactical acumen than their family ties. A person of significant means and multiple business interests, Hamad bin Jassim largely oversees the country’s international finances through his chairmanship of the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and one of its primary investment vehicles, Qatar Holdings. Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim, or HBJ as he is often referred to by the army of expats working in the country’s financial sector, is known for his banker’s reserve and a fine sense of personal and global diplomacy, a product no doubt of his many years of service as Qatar’s chief diplomat. The prime minister has been credited with several of Qatar’s major international accomplishments and so-called diplomatic coups, not the least of which was bringing peace to warring Lebanese factions in 2008, and also with several of QIA’s high-profile acquisitions.
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Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is the youngest member of the policymaking inner circle. Born in 1980, the heir apparent has been increasingly more visible in his public profile and his official responsibilities, including service as the deputy commander-in-chief of the armed forces and chairman of the board of QIA. While keenly interested in sports, the heir apparent currently appears to be on apprenticeship, shadowing his father and the prime minister in preparation for eventual ascension to rule. The ultimate decision maker remains the emir, who oversees each of the functional areas described above and whatever else is left. In this sense, the emir’s role is similar to that of a chief executive officer to whom four functional deputies report. As it happens, the deputies are both highly loyal and competent. It is no surprise that Qatar, Inc. often runs remarkably efficiently.

Although these individuals forming the emir’s inner circle may change offices from time to time, and their numbers may vary by one or two over the years, so far the concentration of power and decision making in their hands appears to have served them—and perhaps Qatar at large—well. Clearly, agency matters, and the specific decisions made by these key individuals at critical junctures in present-day Qatar have been consequential to the course of the country’s political direction and economic development. Ordinarily, this pervasiveness of personalism in lieu of institutional depth could seriously undermine state capacity and erode its ability to carry out developmental and other transformational agendas.
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In the case of Qatar, however, the particularities of the country—its small size and massive wealth, and the singular determination of the small elite of policymakers—have greatly helped rather than hindered the state’s capacity to affect change. Elite factionalism or even discord has been either nonexistent or minimal; the small size of society has not required a large bureaucracy that would be more prone to inefficiency; and the state’s huge supply of cash has enabled it to import wholesale talent and international enterprises that perform many of the functions which would have otherwise been left to domestic entities and institutions. A case could be made that in Qatar the centralization of power and decision making among a few personalities has helped enhance state capacity rather than undermine it.