Citing Qatar’s involvement in the Arab revolutions and its growing clout with Western power brokers, Time Magazine has named Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani one its People Who Mattered in 2011. 

According to the report:

The first response of Arab autocrats facing the wrath of their restive youth populations is to blame al-Jazeera. And the cable news network that makes Arab strongmen so uncomfortable is, of course, owned by the al-Thani family — an effective vehicle of Qatari “soft power”.

But Qatar hardly limited itself to soft power: It took a leading role in the international military intervention to topple Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, not only sending fighter planes to join the NATO air campaign, but also deploying its Special Forces units on the ground to guide the rebel assault on Tripoli…

Read the full explanation here.