On the morning of Friday 13 June, a few hours after Israel launched a volley of missiles towards Tehran, one of Donald Trump’s first calls was to the emir of Qatar. Trump hoped that Sheikh Tamim could persuade the president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, to engage in a negotiated solution. Pezeshkian refused. Iran would be willing to talk, but would not negotiate under fire.
Over the next few days, during what has since come to be known as the “12 -day war”, the Qataris spoke regularly to President Trump and the Iranian leadership. “We were busy,” a senior Qatari diplomat told me, with some understatement. The risks to the region were high, but to Qatar they were “existential”, he said. Qatar is a tiny country. Most of its immense wealth comes from the undersea gasfield that it shares with nearby Iran, and the two nations enjoy good relations. At the same time, Qatar is a close ally of Iran’s greatest enemy, the US, and hosts the largest US military base in the region. If the US became involved in the war, Qatar would become a target.
