CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VII (1, 2) Contemporary-Eurasia-3new | Página 88

CONTEMPORARY EURASIA
conducting the propaganda war. 32 According to some estimates, Qatar has
spent about 1.5 billion US dollars on PR activities in the United States
and Western Europe, aiming at neutralizing Qatar’s ties with terrorism.
It should be noted that Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in-
volved in the improvement of Qatar–Gulf relations, yet he failed to suc-
ceed in that mission by March 2018, before his resignation from offi ce. 33
The US mediation on overcoming the crisis can be said to have exhausted
itself. 34 An offi cial statement of Kuwait announced that the Kuwaiti initia-
tive also failed. 35
Hence, Qatar has spent about $1.5 billion on PR eff orts since the con-
fl ict. Similar amounts were expected to be spent by Saudi Arabia. 36 The
Qatar crisis became the biggest split in the Arab world since the second
Gulf War. It was a great challenge to regional stability as well. The clash
challenged the GCC as well. It has proven itself incapable of serving as a
mechanism to resolve the crisis. 37
Conclusion
The research argues that the anti-Qatar coalition failed in its eff orts of
forcing Qatar to accept its 13 demands, including shutting down Al Ja-
zeera, to cease support for various regional Islamist groups, both Sunni
and Shiite, and to break Qatari economy. Saudi Arabia’s and its allies’
real goal was to force Qatar unable to carry out any independent foreign
policy. To that end, the anti-Qatar coalition carried out international pro-
paganda against Doha.It is worth noting the confrontation played out in
Qatar’s favor. Doha turned for support to Turkey and Iran. On the oth-
er hand, anti-Qatar coalition benefi ts Iran’s and Turkey’s regional power
aspirations in the MENA region. Reports by international organizations
32
33
34
35
36
37
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