Time for Qatar to review its hosting of US Al Udeid military air base

The assassination of one of the highest-ranking Generals and the Commanders of Al Quds Force – part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) – Qasem Soleimani, opened an unprecedented form of conflict in the Gulf region.  Soleimani was killed in Iraq on 3 January 2020 by an US drone strike in Iraq, while travelling to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi.  Iran retaliated by targeting the US military facilities in Iraq, it fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi air bases housing US forces days after the assassination. According to The Times of Israel, Israel helped the US in that operation.

The leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh was killed by Israel in Tehran after attending the inauguration of the President of Iran Masoud Pezeshkian.  Another pure violation of the sovereignty of Iran and international law.  The killing of Haniyeh in July 2024 came on the heels of the attack and killing of a number of Iranian diplomats at the embassy of Iran in Damascus, Syria on 01 April 2024.  Israel – with the support of the US – has continued to assassinate Iranian officials at will inside Iran.

Qatar had joint military operations with the US during the Operation Desert Storm in Iraq in 1991.  After the operation, Qatar and the US signed a Defence Cooperation Agreement.  The agreement was expanded in 1996 to include the building of Al Udeid Military Air Base at a cost of more than $1 billion.  The Al Udeid Military Air Base is the largest US military base in the Middle East. Iran attacked Al Udeid in retaliation to the US’s attacks of Iranian nuclear sites in Fordo, Natanz and Esfahan in Iran in June 2025.  Although the retaliation strikes were downplayed by the US and Qatar, the attacks seemed to have been carefully choreographed, exposing a new fault line in US-Qatar military cooperation.

The question in most minds of Qataris is; what will happen next time when the US decides to attack Iran, will Iran retaliate by attacking Qatar again?  Notwithstanding the repeated mantra of “a friendly, brotherly love and appreciation” between Qatar and Iran, the biggest threat to Qatar’s security and political stability now and in the near future is a possible war between Israel and the US against Iran. The targeting of Iran by Israel and the US presents a new security threat in the region.

Al Udeid has served as “a symbol of protection for the State of Qatar against potential attacks and other forms of hostilities”.  However, when put to the test, Al Udeid has failed to meet those expectations.  Besides the recent Iran attacks of the US military installations in Al Udeid; when Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt led a blockade against Qatar in 2017, there was no forewarning from the US notwithstanding Al Udeid’s superior military intelligence.  According to the Qatari Defence Minister, Khalid al Attiyah, “Actually it was not a mere intention. There was a plan to invade Qatar”.  The “plan was set into two phases, imposing the siege with the aim of creating an overall state of panic, which would have a direct impact on the Qatari street, then executing a military invasion”.

The possible future conflicts involving the US and Iran have raised serious concerns about the safety of US’s assets and personnel in the region.  It has also triggered a debate, particularly within the US media, of the viability and rationale of the country’s continued involvement in Israel’s wars in the region.  The Make America Great Again (MEGA) leading supporters such as the executive chairman of Breitbart News, Stephen Banon and right-wing journalist and social media influencer Tucker Carlson have questioned “the US continuing blind support Israel’s wars in the Middle East”.  Tucker Carlson a known Trump supporter and a right-wing voice has been the loudest.  He has been “urging the US to stay out of Israel’s war with Iran”.  Bannon and Carlson are part of a broader effort to overturn the “GOP’s hawkish consensus on Israel”.  Notwithstanding his unwavering support of Israel, Trump has been critical of Benjamin Netanyahu war mongering strategy in the region.  Trump has entered into lucrative business relationships with countries in the Arab/Persian Gulf recently; Netanyahu stands to disturb that relationship.  The US and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have agreed to turn Abu Dhabi “to a site of the largest artificial intelligence campus outside the US”.  The US will allow “the UAE to import half a million Nvidia semiconductor chips, considered the most advanced in the world in the artificial intelligence products”.  According to The Guardian, Saudi Arabia struck a similar deal of semiconductors, obtaining the promise of the sale of hundreds of thousands of Nvidia Blackwell chips to Humain, an AI start-up owned by the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund.  Indeed, given these interests and the strengthening relationship between the US and the Gulf countries, the US has much more to lose if it continues to blindly support Israel’s wars.

The relationship between Iran and the State of Qatar is very strong, both countries share gas exploration sites in the South Pars/North Dome. They are the gas condensate fields located in the Arabian/Persian Gulf.  They are by far the world’s largest natural gas fields.  There is also the people to people relationship between Qatar and Iran dating back to time immemorial.  The next attack of Iran by the US or Israel could escalate and spread the war to Qatar.  Although the US managed to move its assets from Al Udeid to other locations in Qatar before Iran’s attacks last month, the question remains. What  guarantees do Qatar have that in future Iran would not target those locations?  There is a possibility that if attacked Iran will once again retaliate. What will happen then? The retaliatory attacks could go beyond a mere violation of Qatar’s airspace and sovereignty; it could also cost Qatari lives.  The State of Qatar has to take serious decisions regarding Al Udeid if it wants to maintain its future relationship with Iran and other countries in the region.  It must close Al Udeid.  It has more valid reasons to do that now.  The threat has morphed in the region.  Consequently, new defence infrastructure needs to be considered by Qatar. Al Udeid presents more political and diplomatic challenges than opportunities.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.