Qatar

Tuesday

Matt McDonald

How Trump and FIFA’s Gianni Infantino teamed up to rebrand peace

When you attend the court of King Donald, it’s important to genuflect. Unfamiliar foreigners in need of pointers can look to the man who is currently the most assiduous non-American flatterer: FIFA president Gianni Infantino. It’s only natural that, in the lead-up to this year’s soccer World Cup, the president of the global governing body of the sport should make regular visits to the host nation. Yet Infantino has gone above and beyond. He appears to have spent more time in Donald Trump’s orbit than some of the President’s cabinet secretaries. Infantino has been a willing accomplice in Trump’s campaign to secure the Nobel Peace Prize On paper, it would be easy to make the case that Infantino is a textbook globalist.

fifa peace donald trump gianni infantino

Wednesday

Jawad Iqbal

The Gulf states have a big decision to make about Iran

Iran threatened harsh retaliation in the wake of the American-Israeli attacks that killed the country’s supreme leader and many of its senior commanders. Its response consisted of a barrage of missiles aimed at Israel. So far, so predictable. Yet, at the same time, Tehran chose to direct its firepower at neighboring Gulf states, countries that have been encouraging diplomacy and warning against war. Iran’s actions are an object lesson in how to alienate your friends and neighbors. So far, they have continued to employ the rhetoric of de-escalation. But that’s untenable if Iran continues to target their territory The Iranians targeted Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Jordan. Explosions rocked the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.

gulf

Saturday

Edmund Fitton-Brown

Why Trump’s Muslim Brotherhood crackdown is long overdue

Donald Trump has begun the process of banning the Muslim Brotherhood. The President asked his officials last week to investigate whether certain chapters of the group should be classed as foreign terrorist organizations, which would result in economic and travel sanctions. Some are portraying this as a reckless lurch into Islamophobia. In fact, it is overdue by at least a decade. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a benign religious association. It is a disciplined ideological movement with a century-long record of exploiting political systems. Its explicit objective is to work towards the establishment of a global caliphate – only by gradualist means, rather than the reckless confrontation and brutality favored by its distant offshoot, ISIS.

muslim brotherhood
USA Soccer Fans
Josh Glancy

Please America, don’t get into soccer

Americans are truly excellent at four things: ingenuity, marketing, making chicken wings and inventing their own sports. The first three, of course, are also all foundational pillars of American sporting glory; it would be nothing without the wings. And so, as the US gears up to face the Netherlands on Saturday, its first ever appearance in the knockout round of the World Cup this century, I am duty bound to issue a plea: for the love of all that you hold sacred, please America, don’t get into soccer. This would be a huge mistake. While covering the World Cup in Doha, I’ve watched the US men’s national team, or USMNT as they are unforgivably referred to, play in a couple of games. And I have to say I'm pretty concerned.

Wednesday

Joel Griffith

The Heritage Foundation’s exodus of experts

Under Kevin D. Roberts, the Heritage Foundation is unraveling the remarkable legacy Edwin Feulner built. Once known as “the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement,” Heritage’s moral and philosophical clarity has yielded to confusion, populism and personality-driven politics. The damage to Heritage’s mission and credibility is becoming irreparable. Much of the recent outcry focuses on Roberts’s decision to maintain Heritage’s partnership with Tucker Carlson after Carlson’s now-infamous interview with Holocaust-denier Nick Fuentes.

Kevin Roberts heritage foundation

Friday

Jason M. Brodsky

Doha attack was a blast from the past

Israel’s audacious strike against the leaders of the Hamas terrorist organization in Qatar exemplifies the Jewish state’s new security doctrine – one of boldness and risk-readiness. The Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023, was a watershed moment that reset security calculations in Israel in a significant way. The results are Iran’s proxy network defanged, and a Tehran shaken after its own 12-Day War with Israel. Many observers believe that Israel’s strikes in Qatar risk unraveling the Abraham Accords and undermining U.S. interests. But as past episodes have demonstrated, there is likely to be immediate outrage followed by a reversion to the status quo.

Doha

Thursday

Freddy Gray

How Donald Trump will be impeached

From the election in November to the presidential inauguration in January, media commentators took turns to pronounce the Trump “Resistance” dead. I know I did. The line was too tempting. As Trump stormed back into the White House, his power looked irresistible. His enemies seemed so broken and defeated. We all spoke too soon. “NeverTrumpism” is a reaction to Trumpism, as natural as magnetic repulsion and the urge to defy and destroy his presidency hasn’t vanished. In fact, look closely and you can see a “Resistance 2.0” gathering momentum in response to the second Trump administration.

impeached

Tuesday

Cockburn

Joe Biden, the Democrats’ tell-tale heart

How Biden blew it Joe Biden’s final act is to serve as the Democrats’ tell-tale heart. His public appearances are a haunting reminder of the lie told by so many in their party: that there was nothing wrong with the 46th president during his time in office. Biden is on a “don’t call it a comeback” tour ahead of the release of a book from Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper that threatens to reveal the poor physical and mental state the president was in during his time in office. So far we’ve learned that Biden’s “physical deterioration was so severe in 2023 and 2024 that advisors privately discussed the possibility he’d need to use a wheelchair if he won re-election.

Tuesday

Ella Johnson

Bob Menendez found guilty of bribery and extortion

New Jersey senator Bob Menendez was found guilty of all sixteen charges today, including bribery, extortion, acting as a foreign agent, obstruction of justice and several counts of conspiracy. Three businessmen paid bribes to the Democratic senator and his wife in exchange for taking actions to benefit them and the governments of Qatar and Egypt, or so the prosecutors argued. Those bribes included $100,000 in gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz and more than $480,000 in cash. Two of the New Jersey businessmen tried alongside Menendez were also convicted on all counts. Menendez did not plead guilty or testify in his own defense. His team argued that he was acting on behalf of his constituents and that the prosecution couldn’t prove that the gold bars and money were bribes.

bob menendez

Tuesday

Neetu Arnold

Time to end branch campuses in Qatar

The post-October 7 backlash against campus antisemitism has taken its next casualty: Texas A&M’s Qatar branch campus. The Texas A&M System’s Board of Regents voted 7-1 on February 8 to close its overseas campus in Qatar by 2028. This makes Texas A&M the first American university to end its deal with the Gulf State after two decades in operation and more than $600 million in Qatari funds. And while it’s a victory on several fronts, including combating global support for terrorism and improving national security, this is only the beginning: there are five other American universities that should follow Texas A&M’s lead by closing their branch campuses in Qatar.

qatar

Monday

Charles Lipson

Why hasn’t Hamas freed its American hostages?

Hamas’s most valuable assets are the American hostages it holds. That simple fact means the terrorist organization will demand the highest value in return. What can America give Hamas in exchange? Not prisoners, since the US doesn’t hold any Hamas fighters. That means the US cannot follow the Israeli pattern of giving Hamas three Palestinian prisoners in exchange for every one held by Hamas. Nor can America provide boatloads of cash, as the Biden administration has for Iran. Biden could continuing giving Iran money, but that is much harder in the midst of war. And it is untenable politically to pay Hamas directly while the fighting continues. The Biden team might promise to help rebuild Gaza later, but that’s not valuable to Hamas right now, as it fights for its life.

hamas

Monday

Cockburn

Elon Musk’s weird weekend

He may have been racking up the hours at the office lately, but even Elon Musk knows when to take a break. The world’s second richest man was spotted in Qatar yesterday at the FIFA World Cup final between Argentina and France. What’s weird about a rich man going to a rich-person-thing, you ask? The fact that he was in the same box as Jared Kushner… Watching Argentina beat France on penalties capped off a frenetic few days for the new Twitter chief. Earlier, he had kicked a number of tech and "disinformation" journalists off his app for supposed breaches of Twitter policy.

elon musk twitter jared kushner

Monday

Neetu Arnold

How Qatari money is undermining free speech at universities

“It is often said that history will judge us not only for what we said and did in times of strife, but also for our silence.” So wrote Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism dean Charles Whitaker in 2018. The statement was released following a heated exchange between former president Donald Trump and CNN reporter Jim Acosta, which resulted in the White House revoking Acosta’s press pass. Whitaker believed it was important for an “institution as prominent as Medill” to defend the journalism profession against such an “attack.” Four years later, Northwestern has failed to practice what it preaches: it fell silent when Qatari security officials threatened to smash a Danish journalist’s camera during a live TV report on the FIFA World Cup.

Friday

Dave Seminara

Welcome to the woke World Cup

The World Cup has just begun and it’s already shaping up to be the wokest iteration of the world’s grandest sporting event in history. Twelve years ago, corrupt FIFA officials awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, a Gulf state of less than three million people and about the size of Connecticut. In the intervening years, most of the criticism of this decision focused on the bribery scandal that engulfed FIFA and claims from human rights groups that some 6,000 migrant laborers died on the job during the frenzied construction of eight stadiums and other buildings for the tournament. Attacks on the host country have broadened in recent days, focusing predominantly on Qatar’s laws criminalizing homosexuality.

Friday

Cockburn

The Qatar World Cup is sport’s Fyre Festival

Two days before the start of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, authorities have decided to ban the sale of alcohol within the eight stadiums hosting matches. Only non-alcoholic options will be available. Cockburn is appalled at the audacity of such a move — soccer without booze!? How will anyone cope? Beer will apparently be available at the Fan Festival among other areas, but that's little consolation. Not to mention the fact that Budweiser had a sponsorship deal with FIFA for the World Cup. Who knew that the Gulf nation could be so ruthless? (Lots of people.) Qatar is already struggling to attract fans, with inadequate lodging options and incredibly high fees.

qatar

Tuesday

Chadwick Moore

BREAKING: soccer is gay

As with a couple of prominent unmarried senators, Americans have long suspected that soccer might be gay. Now, it’s official. On Monday, the US men’s national team unveiled a redesign to the team’s logo that replaces red stripes in the crest with the rainbow colors of the gay pride flag. https://twitter.com/USMNT/status/1592266453952172041 Soccer’s decision to come out of the closet ahead of the World Cup, and to live as its authentic self, was met with shrugs of “well, obviously” and “I always thought soccer might be gay since that time I caught soccer trying on my make-up and lipsyncing to Donna Summer.

soccer

Tuesday

Brian Willett

Raise your hand if you have confidence in the USMNT

National soccer teams can have terrible build-ups and do well in the World Cup. They can have great results before the World Cup and flop at the tournament. But is any US Men’s National Team fan confident this team can get out of its group? Are the players? Remember, US Soccer waited a year for Gregg Berhalter. So far, he has matched the accomplishments of previous managers Bruce Arena (for 2002, at least), Bob Bradley and Jurgen Klinsmann: qualify for a World Cup and win a Gold Cup. The CONCACAF Nations League didn’t exist during the tenures of the other managers, though I wouldn’t hang my hat on laboring through to the Nations League finals, then beating Mexico in extra-time on home soil.

usmnt

Monday

Daniel DePetris

Don’t expect much from Biden’s Middle East trip

It took Barack Obama less than three months to fly to the Middle East for a visit, landing in Iraq to visit the tens of thousands of US troops stationed there at the time. Donald Trump’s first overseas trip as president was to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (also three months into his tenure), where he basked in the limelight, watched in awe as his face was plastered on buildings in Riyadh, and hovered over a glowing orb with King Salman. Now, eighteen months into his presidency, Joe Biden will be spending a few days this week in the region, making stops in Israel, the West Bank, and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Wednesday

They/Them

Happy corporate wokewash month!

It’s June and the biggest corporations on the planet want you to know that they are celebrating gay Pride — unless you live somewhere like Saudi Arabia in which case they couldn’t care less. On their main Twitter page, Procter & Gamble have put a Pride flag in their banner and in their pinned Tweet they proudly proclaim: 'We strive to be a champion of #LGBTQVisibility year-round, using our voice to drive acceptance, inclusion and a love for humanity.' I guess there are no gay people in Saudi Arabia to champion, which must be why P&G’s Saudi Twitter handle has not a single rainbow flag in sight and a pinned tweet simply wishing people a blessed Ramadan. But that is the beauty of corporate wokewashing.

pride wokewashing corporate

Wednesday

Mark Perry

How would America really ‘end’ Iran?

Donald Trump says that America could ‘end’ Iran, and no doubt we could. The US could launch an air campaign that would destroy the Islamic Republic’s most important military assets. But it’s hard to see exactly how. With a diminishing number of useful allies, not to mention a military exhausted from 18 years of war on terror, America is not in the position it once was to exert great force in the Middle East. Ever since the push to invade Iraq, the US has been shedding allies. We have become increasingly dependent for help on an unimpressive handful of wannabes. Turkey sat out the Iraq War: so did France, Germany and Canada, three of our most potent military supporters.

iran bark bite