20BEFORE OILQ ATA RA settlement known as Qatar— or Catara— has endured on the thumb-
shaped peninsula jutting from the Arabian landmass as far back as the
second century, as chronicled by Ptolemy in the first known map of the
region. The al- Thani family, which follows the same Wahhabi interpre-
tation of Sunni Islam as its counterparts in Saudi Arabia, has controlled
the barren peninsula since the early 1800s, a period that extends through
Ottoman fealty, the establishment of British dominance in 1916, and
Qatari independence in 1971.
In 1939, drillers on Qatar’s west coast struck oil, finding the modest
(by Gulf standards) Dukhan oilfield. Prosperity came in fits and starts,
with Doha modernizing into a second- tier Gulf trading port. Qatar
looked destined for insignificance when its course was altered by two
momentous events. The first took place in 1971, when a Royal Dutch Shell
drilling crew discovered the world’s largest natural gas field. The offshore
find was a disappointment at the time, since there were no export mar-
kets nearby. Later, the gas proved transformational. Second, the 1995 pal-
ace coup launched by Hamad bin Khalifa al- Thani decisively altered the
sheikhdom’s trajectory. Sheikh Hamad overthrew Sheikh Khalifa, his
father, a more cautious ruler who had allowed Riyadh to maintain a
strong influence over Qatari affairs. Upon seizing power, Sheik h Hamad
leveraged Qatari natural gas not only to maximize the country’s pros-
perity but to forge a foreign policy and media venture outside Saudi
influence.^18
Qatar’s foreign- policy stance has frequently contradicted those of
Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Qatar has maintained friendly ties with Iran
while backing Islamist political opposition groups outlawed elsewhere
in the Gulf (the Muslim Brotherhood in particular). Its state- owned Al-
Jazeera TV network regularly airs provocative coverage that at times
embarrasses or angers its Gulf neighbors. In recent years, these issues
have embroiled Qatar in diplomatic and trade blockades led by three of
its erstwhile brethren, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain.
Qatar stands out as an outlier for other reasons as well. Qatar’s pop-
ulation is the smallest of all Gulf states but Bahrain. Its 278,000 citizens