Qatar faces backlash among Syrian opposition groups for outsized role in Syria

           As conflict continues in Syria and rebel groups are fighting to topple President Bashar Assad, Qatar continues to give support to opposition groups and holds a big role in the civil war but they limit their financial and physical support to only groups that they like.  Many smaller groups are complaining that Qatar is not providing the necessary amount of ammunition, guns, and supplies to them because they are not Islamic enough or do not have a obvious Islamic ideology.  Qatar has too much power in post Assad Syria buy buying up outsized influence and giving support only to groups who are Islamic minded.  Many opposition groups and group members are dispersing from their groups or disbanding because they will not stand for the exploitation of Qatar in the Syrian revolution because they see it as personal gain for Qatar and is allowing them too much control of the area which makes many believe that Qatar is trying to shape the new government of Syria.  Even more of a problem is the back that certain rebel groups that are backed by Qatar contain fundamentalists such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

            The Syrian National Coalition was hurt by Qatar's involvement as many members left after Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood used their pressure to get their candidate to become prime minister of the coalition which has weakened the group.  What rebels are seeing is the government of Qatar composing most of the new interim government in Syria which is an outrage to many rebel groups.  Even worse Qatar continues to provide weapons to only religious ideological rebel groups and is not supporting militant or ultraconservative rebel groups, hurting the chance of those groups to be successful and ultimately making people grow further apart from each other due to due to the deliberate lack of support from some but not others. Islamic brigades do not share ammunition, guns, or supplies to nationalist brigades.  The groups that are not receiving support from Qatar and other countries offering support are beginning to mistrust Qatar because they feel that ultimately Qatar is only interested in ruling Syria and is hoping for the entire regime to topple. 

            We should care about this issue because if Qatar and other involved countries are giving unfair support by only helping certain religious regimes in the fight and putting Qatari people in charge of large groups, we should worry that Qatar is exerting too much power in the fight and that it has other interests besides helping.  If Qatar is secretly trying to take over Syria and ruin its rebuilding by supporting only certain groups whom have different views that normal militant or nationalist groups, then the United States will be faced with losing Syria to Qatar and destroying all the work that has been done to try to fix the problems in Syria.  This article in whole was trying to say that we should be suspicious of Qatar and its huge support in the opposing group fight in Syria because it may have another hidden agenda that might cause more damage in the middle east before anyone even realized what has happened.  If Qatar was supporting all groups with equal shares of supplies and money and it wasn't putting its own leaders in charge, then there would be nothing suspicious.

            After analyzing the entire situation and evidence stated in the article, the future of Syria and Qatar is quite clear.  Using theories learned in class, I have come to the conclusion that if Qatar continues to take more and more charge of Syria and focusing on only rebels that they favor, eventually all other rebel groups will disappear, Qatar will put its own people in charge of Syria, and slowly the rebel groups will be taken out while Qatar takes quiet rule of the country, effectively destroying the interim government there right now and ending the opposition forces.  This would ruin all chances for saving and rebuilding Syria after its intial fall and start making Qatar more powerful and more influential which in turn can make Qatar more power hungry and have it start going after other problematic countries as long as Qataris know they can just use their money to give off the idea of fake support.  I think policymakers and rebel groups in Syria should take an active role in removing Qatari officials from the head of rebel groups and find another source of money and support so Qatar loses its influence and trust.

Sources Cited:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/04/24/qatar-faces-backlash-among-syrian-opposition-groups-and-rebels-for-outsized/