Former Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani has warned that Iran’s strikes on Gulf states were a strategic miscalculation that has cost Tehran its regional friendships and sympathy.
Iran has squandered its relationships across the Gulf by striking civilian targets in GCC countries, former Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani has warned, saying the attacks caught Doha “by surprise” and that ties with Tehran may never be the same.
“I think the Iranian, by doing this, they lost a lot of friends in the region and a lot of sympathy,” Sheikh Hamad, also known as HBJ, told Fox Business Network’s Mornings with Maria on Tuesday.
Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Gulf states beginning on February 28, in retaliation for a joint US-Israeli military campaign against Tehran. The strikes targeted Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, and while Iran claimed it was targeting US military assets, Gulf states said the attacks expanded to hit civilian infrastructure including airports, hotels and residential areas.
Sheikh Hamad said Qatar and most Gulf states had opposed military action and had been following peace talks in Geneva with hope, but “it’s now not our choice that we have to defend our country,” he said.
Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi had also earlier said that Geneva talks had made “genuine progress towards an unprecedented agreement” before the war erupted, and urged the swift resumption of dialogue, saying “the door to diplomacy remains open.”
Sheikh Hamad added that Iran’s decision to strike GCC nations, including civilian and vital infrastructure targets, was a strategic miscalculation that had alienated former sympathisers in the region.
“A really foolish move by the Iranians was to hit the Arab countries in the Gulf who really had wanted to stay out of this,” he said.
HBJ also said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies were the only beneficiary of Iran’s strikes on Gulf states. “[The] only winner is the policy of Netanyahu, which we don’t agree with anyway,” he said.
When asked about US Senator Lindsey Graham’s remarks that his first priority once the conflict ends would be to accelerate normalisation talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel, HBJ said the Gulf states’ proximity to the United States did not automatically translate into closer ties with Israel, and that any such process required a path for peace for Palestinians.
“I cannot talk on behalf of the Saudis, but what I can say — what happens now, it doesn’t mean that we’ll go closer to the Israeli and the Abraham Accords. We need to have an understanding before that,” he said.
He noted that Qatar had previously been among Israel’s closest partners in the region, and had gained little from it. “We don’t mind to have a peace with Israel,” he said, but added that Netanyahu’s own maps showing a “greater Israel” raised fundamental doubts about Israeli intentions.
in 1996, Israel opened a trade representative office in Qatar, yet in 2000 Qatar shut down the office to show solidarity with the Palestinians amid the Second Intifada. The Israelis, however, kept a “token presence” in Doha through their mission. This lasted until early 2009, when Qatari authorities permanently closed it in response to Israeli war crimes committed during the 2008/2009 war on Gaza.
He warned that the damage done by Iran’s attacks on its Gulf neighbours could outlast the war itself, saying the region had entered a new era whose consequences would be felt long after the missiles ceased.
On the prospect of Gulf retaliation, HBJ stated that he did not personally support retaliation against Iran, but expressed regret that diplomacy had been overtaken by military action. He said had the international community waited another week, the peace talks underway in Geneva and Vienna might have yielded results.
He called for an immediate return to the negotiation table to contain the crisis.
