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As Qatar’s Emir Visits the White House, Here’s What Americans Need to Know About the Islamist Emirate securitystudies.org/as-qatars-emir… New from me at @SecStudiesGrp (Thread)
Qatar positioned itself in the middle of (at least) 2 huge strategic problems for the Trump administration: Middle East Peace and disengaging from Afghanistan. They've convinced nearly everyone inside the Beltway that they're an "indispensable ally"-- but this will backfire. 
Here's how Qatar sold itself in DC: (1) The White House is hoping Qatar can save the day on their ME peace plan; (2) The Pentagon is in love with their al-Udeid Air Base in Doha; (3) Foggy Bottom loves Qatar's support for Islamists it likes to call "democratic" and "moderate."
(4) On Capitol Hill, Qatar has made a ton of friends by investing heavily into certain states and districts, like @LindseyGrahamSC and @NikkiHaley's South Carolina. conservativereview.com/news/south-car… via @JordanSchachtel
(5) On the Democrat side of the Hill, Qatar can count on the organization and lobbying of Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups that the Left likes to listen to. These groups and leaders (CAIR, ISNA, Sarsour, Omar, etc) understand that Qatar is the patron of Islamists worldwide.
(6) As for the media, I covered their infatuation with Qatar and-- far more importantly-- it's narratives at the @FDRLST earlier this summer. The short answer is, "Qatar speaks woke SJW-ese." thefederalist.com/2019/04/10/med…
Qatar's media empire plays a huge role in this, too: its Al Jazeera is the world’s most successful and influential state-directed information operation. In Arabic, it pushes a stream of anti-Semitic, anti-American conspiracy theories, and attempts to rile up extremists.
In English, Al-Jazeera presents itself as progressive and left wing. A rebranding as “AJ+” was to obscure the Islamist-run network and to appeal to younger people in the West, with social media material in English, Arabic, French and Spanish.
