Qatar’s predictable,and probably inevitable decision to reject the list of 13 demands made of it by its Gulf Co-operation Council adversaries – Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE (dubbed by GSN the GCC-3, also known as the Troika) – and Egypt suggests the conflict will drag on for much longer than its second month. Economists believe Doha can see out a protracted boycott, barring a still unlikely military intervention that Qatar’s much smaller forces would find hard to oppose – despite the recent Turkish deployment, and talk of closer relations with Iran, which could have catastrophic consequences for the region, as the Qataris well know.
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