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<\/a><\/p>\nOn March 25, 2011, a Qatar Air Force Mirage 2000-5, took off from Souda Air Base, in Crete, to help enforce a no-fly zone protecting rebels being attacked by Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi. Qatar was the first Persian Gulf nation to help the U.S. in the conflict.<\/p>\n
Qatari operations were more than symbolic. The Qatari military trained rebel units, shipped them weapons, accompanied their fighting units into battle, served as a link between rebel commanders and NATO, tutored their military commanders, integrated disparate rebel units into a unified force and led them in the final assault on Qaddafi\u2019s compound in Tripoli<\/a>.\u201cWe never had to hold their hand,\u201d a retired senior U.S. military officer says. \u201cThey knew what they were doing.\u201d Put simply, while the U.S. was leading from behind in Libya, the Qataris were walking point.<\/p>\n The Qatar intervention has not been forgotten at the Pentagon and is one of the reasons why Defense Secretary James Mattis has worked so diligently to patch up the falling out between them and the coalition of Saudi-led countries (including the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt), that have isolated and blockaded the nation. In fact, Mattis was stunned by the Saudi move. \u201cHis first reaction was shock, but his second was disbelief,\u201d a senior military officer says. \u201cHe thought the Saudis had picked an unnecessary fight, and just when the administration thought they\u2019d gotten everyone in the Gulf on the same page in forming a common front against Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time of the Saudi announcement, Mattis was in Sydney with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to dampen concerns about the Trump administration\u2019s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris climate accords. The two glad-handed Australian officials and issued a reassuring pronouncement on U.S. intentions during a\u00a0June 5 press briefing<\/a>\u00a0with that nation\u2019s foreign and defense ministers. When the burgeoning split between the Saudis and Qataris was mentioned, Tillerson described it as no more than one of \u201ca growing list or irritants in the region\u201d that would not impair \u201cthe unified fight against terrorism \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n But while Tillerson\u2019s answer was meant to soothe concerns over the crisis, behind the scenes he and Mattis were scrambling to undo the damage caused by Saudi action. The two huddled in Sydney and decided that Tillerson would take the lead in trying to resolve the falling out. Which is why, three days after the Sydney press conference, Tillerson called on Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt to ease their anti-Qatar blockade and announced that the U.S.\u00a0supported a Kuwaiti-led mediation effort<\/a>. The problem for Tillerson was that his statement was contradicted by Donald Trump who, during a Rose Garden appearance on the same day,\u00a0castigated Qatar,<\/a>\u00a0saying the emirate \u201chas historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.\u201d<\/p>\n A close associate of the secretary of state says that Tillerson was not only \u201cblind-sided by the Trump statement,\u201d but \u201cabsolutely enraged that the White House and State Department weren\u2019t on the same page.\u201d Tillerson\u2019s aides, I was told, were convinced that the true author of Trump\u2019s statement was U.A.E. ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba, a close friend of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. \u201cRex put two-and-two together,\u201d his close associate says, \u201cand concluded that this absolutely vacuous kid was running a second foreign policy out of the White House family quarters. Otaiba weighed in with Jared and Jared weighed in with Trump. What a mess.\u201d The Trump statement was nearly the last straw for Tillerson, this close associate explains: \u201cRex is just exhausted. He can\u2019t get any of his appointments approved and is running around the world cleaning up after a president whose primary foreign policy adviser is a 36-year-old amateur.\u201d<\/p>\n Worse yet, at least from Tillerson\u2019s point of view, a White House official explained the difference between the two statements by telling the press to ignore the secretary of state. \u201cTillerson may initially have had a view,\u201d a White House official told the\u00a0Washington Post<\/i><\/a>, \u201cthen the president has his view, and obviously the president\u2019s view prevails.\u201d<\/p>\n Or maybe not. While Trump\u2019s June 9 statement signaled that the U.S. was tilting towards the Saudis and the UAE, Tillerson and Mattis have been tilting towards Qatar. And for good reason. \u201cEvery time we\u2019ve asked the Qataris for something they\u2019ve said \u2018yes,\u2019 which isn\u2019t true for the Saudis,\u201d the retired senior U.S. military officer with whom I spoke says. \u201cIt really started with the help the Qataris gave us in Libya, but it goes well beyond that. They\u2019ve been absolutely first rate on ISIS. The Saudis, on the other hand, have been nothing but trouble \u2013 in Yemen, especially. Yemen has been a disaster, a stain. And now there\u2019s this.\u201d<\/p>\n That view has been reflected by both Mattis and Tillerson. Six days after Trump\u2019s statement, Mattis met with Qatari Defense Minister Khalid al-Attiyah to sign an agreement shipping 36 F-15 fighters to the Gulf nation.\u00a0The $12 billion sale\u00a0<\/a>had been in the works for years, so Pentagon officials were able to claim that it had not been fast-tracked by Tillerson, whose department oversees arms transactions. But the Mattis announcement seemed suspiciously well-timed to signal Mattis\u2019 and Tillerson\u2019s views.<\/p>\n On the same day that Mattis was announcing the Qatar arms agreement, Tillerson told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that it would be a mistake to classify the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, one of the primary reasons that the anti-Qatar coalition gave for isolating their Gulf neighbor. \u201cThere are elements of the Muslim Brotherhood that have become parts of government,\u201d Tillerson said, naming Turkey and Bahrain as having brotherhood members in their parliaments. Those \u201celements,\u201d Tillerson added, have renounced violence and terrorism. \u201cSo, in designating the Brotherhood in its totality as a terrorist organization . . . I think you can appreciate the complexities this enters into our relations with [governments in the region].\u201d<\/p>\n But the single most important reason for the Qatar tilt is obvious to anyone who knows how to read a map. The U.S. leases the al-Udeid Air Base, southwest of Doha, which is home to the Air Force\u2019s 379th Air Expeditionary Wing. The U.S. (and the Qataris), not only mount fighter-bombers from al-Udeid against ISIS units in Iraq and Syria, the base serves as the first line of defense against Iranian encroachments in the region. Even more crucially, al-Udeid not only protects America\u2019s Persian Gulf allies, it protects Israel \u2013 and would be a launching point for U.S. aircraft against Iran were Israel to be attacked by the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n More crucially, particularly from Mattis\u2019s point-of-view, the Saudi-Qatar feud not only shattered the anti-Iran coalition the administration cobbled together during the president\u2019s trip to Riyadh, it redrew the geopolitical map of the Middle East. In the wake of the Saudi-Qatar falling out, Turkey pledged its support for Qatar (and deployed troops to a Qatari military base to guard Qatar\u2019s sovereignty), while Iran took steps to help ease the Saudi-imposed blockade.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Saudis and Emiratis have told us repeatedly that they want to weaken Iran, but they\u2019ve actually empowered them,\u201d a senior Pentagon consultant who works on the Middle East told me. The Saudi actions, this official went on to explain, have backfired. Instead of intimidating the Qataris, the Saudis have \u201cthrown them into the arms of the Iranians.\u201d The result is an uneasy, but emerging Turkish-Qatari-Iranian alliance backed by Russia. \u201cThis isn\u2019t just some kind of Gulfie dust-up, where we can go out and hold everyone\u2019s hands,\u201d this Pentagon consultant says. \u201cThe Saudis have handed the Iranians a gift and we\u2019re on the outside looking in.\u201d<\/p>\n The official then shook his head. \u201cListen, I can certainly understand where Mattis and Tillerson are coming from. I mean, with friends like these, who needs enemies.\u201d<\/p>\n Mark Perry is a foreign policy analyst and the author of\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0The Most Dangerous Man in America: The Making of Douglas MacArthur.\u00a0His next book,\u00a0<\/em>The Pentagon\u2019s Wars,\u00a0will be released in October. He tweets\u00a0@markperrydc<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n