A senior Republican senator is pushing back hard on Washington's use of Qatar as a diplomatic partner in the US-Iran negotiations, calling the Gulf state an unreliable ally with deep financial ties to Tehran and a pattern of funding anti-Jewish and anti-Christian agendas on American university campuses.
Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) told Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream that Qatar is "not our friend," going on to criticize the Qatari government's close relationship with Iran.
The two countries have significant financial ties, even as the Iranian military has fired missiles at multiple Qatari sites since the US and Israel launched the war with Iran in February. The contradiction, Scott argued, is precisely the problem: Qatar is playing both sides, and Washington is letting it happen.
In a lengthy social media post, Scott pointed to Qatar's close ties with Iran and its proxies, including Hamas, and noted that Qatar is "the single largest foreign donor to American universities," using that money to "control research agendas and policy to promote non-democratic government and criticize Jews and Christians in the Middle East." He added that Qatari money has also flowed to secondary education institutions "with little to NO transparency."
Despite Scott's concerns, Qatar has been playing a central role in the diplomatic process. The Qatari prime minister attended the US-Iran peace talks in Bürgenstock, Switzerland earlier this month, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif publicly thanked the Qatari emir for his "steadfast support" of the peace efforts.
Scott's remarks reflect a deepening unease within the Republican caucus over the Iran deal as a whole. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton told Fox News he has "concerns that certain aspects of this deal are a step in the wrong direction," citing the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil exports and the unfreezing of tens of billions in Iranian assets. Cotton estimated Iran could reap between $4.5 billion and $6 billion every month from the sanctions relief. "That's a lot of money," he said. "And we know that this terrorist revolutionary regime is not going to spend that money on daycares or on hospitals."
For Israel and its supporters, the GOP resistance to the Qatar-mediated framework is significant. Qatar has long maintained ties with Hamas, hosted its political leadership, and funneled money into American institutions that have been among the most hostile to Israel on US soil. The question of whether Washington should be elevating Doha as a trusted diplomatic broker in a deal affecting the entire region is one that a growing number of Republican senators are now asking out loud.
