ABSTRACT
This chapter will examine how and why Qatari policy toward the Syrian Uprising developed as it did between March 2011 and the present day. Focusing primarily on the period up until the handover of power from Emir Hamad to Emir Tamim in June 2013, individual sections will analyse the formative influences on Qatari policymaking during the critical opening two years of the Uprising. Broader contextual factors that will be considered include the Qatari attempt to shape the direction and pace of change in the Arab world following the outbreak of the “Arab Spring”; the importance of the highly concentrated networks of key decision-makers who dominated Qatari policymaking during this period; and the legacy for Syria of Qatar’s ostensibly successful military intervention in Libya in 2011. The second half of the chapter will examine the growing pushback both within Syria and across the region against Qatari policy and assess how the rolling back of the Arab Spring after mid-2013 impacted on Qatari approaches to Syria. In particular, the chapter will argue that a key side effect of Qatar’s activist regional policy was the impetus it gave to other regional states, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to become far more muscular in their own policies, contributing further to the fragmentation of regional approaches toward Syria.
