The political headquarters of Hamas is somewhere in Doha amidst the glitzy hotels. the incongruous liquor stores, the beachfront developments, perhaps near the Formula 1 race track or a Cheesecake Factory Outpost or the World Cup stadiums is the political headquarters of Hamas (yes, that Hamas).
It's not clear exactly where they're set up but the movement's political leader Ismail Haniyeh was seen in this video praying in a Doha office as their paramilitary burst through Israel's walls killing over a thousand and capturing hundreds as hostages.
Yet no matter where in Doha (it’s a small city), just miles away live almost 10,000 US military members.
Al Udeid Air Base
At Al Udeid Air base, troops later loaded up c17s with bombs which were flown to Cyprus then to Israel be handed over to the IDF and eventually used as part of their brutal invasion of Gaza on a mission to exterminate Hamas.
Crucial components of opposing sides of the same conflict took part just a taxi ride away from each other.
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The fact that members of such clear-cut enemies each engaged in conflict with the other could plausibly brush shoulders in the supermarket is clearly bizarre.
The US presence comes with deep Qatari support.
Al Udeid has long been the forward operating base of US Central Command, meaning it is essentially the headquarters of the military's operations in the Middle East.
Qatar actively sought the US presence, the military has been there for more than two decades and already has an agreement for a decade more.
Yet Hamas is also there with Qatar's blessing!
The movement was invited to set up their political office in DOA in 2012, in fact Qatar reportedly covertly competed with the UAE to get it!
Qatar has even maintained a unique form of aid to Gaza by financing the salaries of public sector employees in the Hamas-run government to the tune of $30 million per month.
Furthermore, this is far from the only instance of individuals who elsewhere have been at opposing ends of artillery fire, co-existing peacefully in Doha.
The Taliban who the US fought for two decades in Afghanistan also opened an office in the city in 2013 - also at the invitation of the Qatari government.
Political Office of the Taliban in Qatar
The unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has an office a mere 10-minute walk away from the embassy of Cyprus, whereas on the island itself the two nations are separated by a miles long demilitarized zone patrolled by UN peacekeeping units.
Perhaps most crucially and tenuously, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are engaged in a decades long proxy war through support of various opposing militant groups across the Middle East each have an embassy in Doha and each at least at the very moment maintain active diplomatic relations with the Qatari government.
These incongruities are not the by-product of sloppy foreign policy, rather they are the core of Qatari foreign policy.
The nation believes that through neutrality, they can find strength extending beyond their natural potential.
For counterintuitive and convoluted reasons, Qatar sees inserting itself in the middle of conflicts as a key way of keeping out of them.
They're trying to become the Switzerland of the Middle East - maintaining a staunch interpretation of neutrality in regional conflicts, then taking that yet another step further by capturing every opportunity to insert themselves in the middle of everyone else's business.
After all, the Middle East is a conflict prone region with a few overwhelming regional powers generating swift currents capable of pulling weaker powers into their wars
Especially since, there are few nations more naturally weak than Qatar.
To start, it is next to no fresh water.
No matter how tightly you zoom into the Peninsular country slightly smaller than Connecticut, you won't find a single river or naturally occurring lake.
On average, the country receives less than a centimetre of precipitation a year, making the sun-baked desolate desert country the world's fourth driest.
So instead they've invested in these - desalination plants, deep wells and massive human-made reservoirs which extract, treat and store the precious water that makes life here possible.
Such processes of course are extremely expensive.
There's no agriculture here, there's just no food.
For calories of any kind, Qatar imports a stunning 90% of all its food from the world over.
Spending from relatively nearby Türkiye, all the way to the US and Canada.
This import industry only continues to grow as the taste for comparatively expensive products - fresh beef, frozen meats and baked goods are leading the way in year-over-year growth.
At base, Qatar is a country with no food, no water and now a population that dwarfs any historical precedent on the peninsula.
For basic staples, for people and for labour to build and manage its complicated water
Infrastructure, the country relies on the rest of the world.
This puts Qatar in a precarious position but one that is increasingly stabilized because of what it has to offer the rest of the world in return – natural gas.
The thing that makes natural gas difficult to move and therefore difficult to turn a profit on is the fact that it's a gas.
As a liquid however, it's safer and easier to handle and far denser, making the economics of exporting it via pipeline or tanker to wherever it's in demand, all the more feasible.
But turning natural gas into liquid natural gas takes a ton of upfront investment requiring processing plants, pipelines and in the case of a country far from where the demand lies -expensive refrigerated tankers.
Undeterred in 1996, the Qatari administration commissioned a city! An industrial centre to facilitate such processes
But it was never gas alone, there are plenty of regional neighbours that have a near identical history – Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Azerbaijan and others are home to prodigal amounts of fossil fuels, yet none of them have even come close to matching the geopolitical strength and influence of Qatar.
The nation's singular status was once again the result of conscious proactive planning.
Qatar needed an image - a brand that would make it feel unique and indispensable.
How did they do it?
I’ll break it down in the next letter!