SEENew reviews the second part of the interview with Irina Tsukerman a human rights and national security attorney based in New York about Turkey and Qatar's anti-Egypt activity and relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and the effect of Israel-UAE normalization on Ankara and Doha's role in the region.
Qatar, Turkey, and China have a growing closeness with China, for somewhat distinct reasons.
Turkey is broke and refuses to back away from its ideological and political commitments and to return to a fully US-oriented position, and Erdogan has generated a great deal of distrust in Turkey against the US and its position; using first Obama's untrustworthiness and messy foreign policy, and then later US close relationship with the Saudis to generate that distrust.
With China being an anti-American aspiring hegemon, Turkey simply has no choice but to fall into its sphere of influence, and it also seeks China's support as an investor as it is unable to overcome its own financial problems.
This will only increase as more and more private companies see the business risk of investing in Turkey due to its high-risk policies, unsavory alliances, and internal economic instability, and the more that happens, the more Turkey will depend on other rogue and authoritarian regimes.
We have seen the example of Erdogan switching his position on Uighurs to appeal to Beijing.
However, there is more to the story, because China's influence in African countries is falling while Turkey's is actually rising.
The reason for that is that China is actually experiencing a significant economic downturn due to its own mismanagement, as a result of a trade war and increasingly Cold War the United States, the results of the global pandemic, overinvestment in speculative ventures, and so forth.
China has generated a great deal of resentment throughout Africa, where its "gifts" were mostly self-serving and did not benefit local populations, many of the projects were poorly executed or left unfinished, where China expected unquestioning loyalty but in exchange did not give as much as was expected or went back on its commitments, and where its racist ideology turned off even many initial supporters.
Wherever China gets involved, it ultimately manages to play a destructive role and no one is left the happier for it except maybe some elites.
But China is also not invested enough in African politics to prop up the corrupt governments that cut deals with it, and those governments increasingly seek to back away from these harmful relationships in order to stay in power. So what's CHina to do?
It still wants access to cheap labor and natural resources, as well as increasingly maritime routes and military bases.
So Turkey, Iran, and other countries with long term political and economic relationships in Africa are a pathway to China's continued influence.
Turkey has managed to generate a lot of goodwill through both direct humanitarian outreach on the ground and t through business deals with various elites and technocrats, and China seeks to exploit that.
So the two regimes are using each other and Turkey does have some leverage in that regard. Qatar and China, too, seem a lot of room for cooperation.
Qatar sees China as part of the future of the Gulf, especially with the United States increasingly retreating, but also Qatar and CHina cooperate extensively on cyber operations against critical targets, propaganda campaigns, with China often serving as a cover for Qatari operations, and other matters.
Qatar is not economically dependent on Beijing, so the relationship is different from Turkey, but it seems the relationship as part of its balance of its interests, same way Doha has played off other actors against each other and uses it to its advantage.
Qatar is also looking to expand its military influence in Africa, but the ATQ is getting in the way, and China's military ambitions in the continent could be a good way to fulfill this ambition.
7- Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood are all funded by Qatar, what is the joint goal to fulfill? What are Qatar’s aims for supporting and funding terrorist groups?
For Hamas, Hezbullah, and MB, the relationship of Qatar is quite pragmatic.
Qatar is their funder, and for the time being there is no reason to think too far about long term ideological conflicts and political implications.
They are also coordinating among themselves for the time being primarily against the West. Hamas and Hezbullah are both Iranian proxies, and Iran seeks to integrate its network globally.
MB is the motherlode of Hamas, and thus they are ideologically linked, and MB is also one of the founders of Hamas through various schemes, though MB also independently engages in its own terrorist operations.
MB even cooperates with Khomeinist proxies on the basis of common revolutionary ideological roots and histories and political approaches in many regards.
As for Qatar's funding of all these groups, it is done for many reasons: with MB - primarily to extend Qatar's influence against its regional rivals, and to create a base of support for Qatar's geopolitical influence in Western countries through coopting educational system and understanding of the Middle East and Islam, and also by raising political candidates that will be favorable to Qatar's goals.
Funding Hezbullah is part of Qatar's alliance with Iran, in part, it's a way to protect itself from any potential Iranian aggression with the goal of taking over Qatari resources, and in part as part of Qatar's strategy of using as proxies any enemies of Western countries such as the US, as well as KSA, and the rest of the ATQ.
Hamas serves the same goal, but also funding gives Qatar an opportunity to play the part of a mediator and a white knight protecting Israeli borders, and gives it a more prominent regional profile and makes it appear indispensable to the White House, the influence over which is the ultimate goal for Doha.
All of the above actors are looking to destabilize the West, especially the US, and their Middle Eastern and North African counterparts.
Hamas has become corrupted over time, its role right now has largely been relegated to annoyance and distraction for Israel from its other border issues, a purveyor of hateful ideologies, and a money launderer for the other actors.
Hezbullah seeks to retain political control of Lebanon, while also expanding influence abroad, and despite growing sanctions, to dominate the international organized crime network in furtherance of funding Iran's shadow economy and assorted schemes, and also to be a go-to proxy for various operations and a model for training militias everywhere.
Recently Hezbullah has been playing a more defensive role in the West especially due to the more aggressive approach to defunding proxy groups by the US administration, but the exportation of the Iranian revolution through these means remains the ultimate goal.
Muslim Brotherhood remains in pursuit of the Caliphate, but until then is willing to ally with any organization, movement, ideology, state or non-state entity that is willing to open doors, cooperate on funding and political goals, give it cover, and work together to counter joint enemies and to pursue limited immediate goals in weakening legitimate governments and promoting anti-Western and anti-monarchy ideology.
8- What about AlJazeerah as a terrorist organization? An important trial hearing in Florida court regarding the American journalist Matthew Schrier’s case against QIBGroup, Qatar Islamic Bank which is accused of financing terrorist group that kidnapped him! Flag of Qatar, how do you see that? Qatar’s great mastery of the game of making militias, supporting them with what It serves its interests, and threatening the stability of the Arab state.
Matthew Schreier's case is but one of a series of lawsuits by victims of terror against Qatari financial institutions and their intermediaries which moved forward in the United States recently.
Even without getting through all the evidence yet to be presented in these cases, the evidence presented in complaints points directly at Qatar government's knowledge, involvement, and control of these financial operations, and open support for the institutions and terrorist organizations which benefited from these operations.
Qatar's funding for terrorist groups responsible for abductions for ransom and torture of American journalists and others in Syria is well established; besides the well-known story of Iran's supposed abduction of Qatari royals in exchange for a ransom which went to benefit all these groups, we have evidence that Qatar voluntarily funded Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Syrian terrorist operations through these financial mechanisms and money laundering through various charities.
Not only its financial institutions but the leadership that authorized or "turned a blind eye" to these transactions should be held responsible for facilitating activity that harmed Americans.
By the way, Qatar in no way intervened in the operations when it became obvious that Americans were being targeted or victimized nor put any pressure on its beneficiaries to secure their release or vetting of targets to avoid such circumstances.
What Schreier's lawsuit is likely to uncover is Qatar's complete disregard for the lives of Americans despite pretenses to being an important US ally on terror.
And we see the same going on Libya, in Somalia where Qatar is said to be linked with Al Shabaab, with various online international extremist ideological cells and movements, in Yemen, and elsewhere around the world where Qatar funds militias and terrorist group of various extreme ideological backgrounds, not caring about the outcome or the destruction to these countries and their neighbors so long as these groups destabilize existing governments and social systems, spread hatred, incitement to violence, fanaticism and bigotry since a young age, and indoctrinates entire populations into the hatred that will keep them perpetually limited and perpetually dependent on others (namely Doha) instead of being open to outreach, integration, and cooperation with others without limitations or being tied down to Qatar's political agenda.
Qatar's purpose in building and funding militias is nothing more than control even if it is a control of countries torn and destroyed by civil wars, it deliberately seeks chaos everywhere, because it is the best scenario to create dependencies and to spread hatred, and to put blame on others.
In stable environments with many opportunities, people don't need Qatar's handouts, they can think for themselves and pursue their own paths.
9- "For some in the West, Qatar, Turkey, ISIL & Muslim Brotherhood are useful terrorists". what do you think of this saying?
9. Regarding the people who consider Qatar and Turkey useful terrorists in the West: useful terrorist", I think this is a bit of a conspiratorial approach prevalent in the Middle East where many people think that American or other Western intelligence agencies use such actors to destabilize the region and to promote American or British or European supremacy.
To be honest, while there may be some factions with that outlook, that ideology is outdated, and back in the day when the British were a colonial power they did not need the Ottomans or some specific country or tribe to achieve that effect, they directly played off different tribes and groups against each other and if they so wished they could still be doing so directly without becoming dangerously dependent on unsavory actors who then will come back to create problems for themselves.
The more obvious explanation for these alliances is much more simple, though in my view, no less sinister.
They find these relationships lucrative in various ways, and they do not particularly care what effect it will ultimately have even on their own societies.
Most people engaged in these relationships have a very superficial understanding of the Middle East, tribal societies, local issues, therefore they are not well-positioned to manipulate anybody or to pursue any concrete policies, for better or for worse.
They depend on the regimes that operate through lobbyists, foreign and domestic, to tell them what to think, what to know, and what to do.
They are outsourcing policies, domestic and foreign to external actors with power, money, and giving them influence in exchange for prestige, money, investment into their countries or communities, various perks, and social recognition.
It is not malevolent brilliant geostrategic thinking worthy of James bond supervillains, but ordinary but no less detestable corruption and willful blindness to the repercussions to themselves and to others.
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