The Cuban journalist Musa Saab wrote an article published on the website of Prensa Latina entitled "The Disagreement between Qatar and the Four, A Disorder in the Arabic Peninsula" on June 8, marking the anniversary of the siege of Qatar.
The article:
A year after its outbreak, the disagreement between Qatar and part of its neighbors in the Arabian Peninsula remains inert as a source of concern in this volatile area of basic importance for the world economy.
The conflict began unexpectedly in early June last year when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, in addition to Egypt after accusing the Qatari authorities of fomenting terrorism, imposed punitive sanctions that attracted attention because of their acrimony: rupture of diplomatic relations and closing of the air, land and maritime borders.
This last decision caused a population exodus of nomadic breeders accustomed since time immemorial to transcend borders without requirements, and the uprooting of families between subjects of the parties involved in the conflict, which have been forced to leave behind goods and haciendas to return to their countries of origins.
Thousands of people set out on the road to and from Qatar along the same routes through which more than 1,400 years ago travelled a humble caravan owner named Mohamed, who would eventually become the prophet of a religion which has 1,500 million followers, who every day pray several times to Allah, a unique God.
The Qatari authorities immediately denied the allegations and rejected the ultimatum based on several conditions, including the severance of relations with Iran and the eviction of the Turkish military stationed in its territory, and although they proposed to debate the causes of the conflict, they also made it clear that these decisions are relevant to their national sovereignty and in no way subject to negotiation.
In these circumstances Iran opened its airspace to Doha and offered logistical help to counteract the possible effects of the blockade, which provided the small state with a vital lung for survival.
Another demand was the suspension of the Qatari support to the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization created in the city of Alexandria in the decade of the 20s of the last century, becoming a multinational organization with political arms, one of whose franchises governed Egypt until the defenestration of former President Mohamed Morsi.
Part of this organization occupies power in Turkey and franchises of the entity act legally in several countries, including Jordan and Kuwait, which like Algeria and others refused to support the Egyptian proposal to the Arab League to include it in the list of terrorist organizations.
The Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with an ironic note, recalled that in the 50s and 60s of the last century, during its conflict with the late Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Saudi kingdom sheltered leaders of the "ajuán" (brothers, in Arabic) .
At this point the first victim of the dispute is the Gulf Cooperation Council, which encompasses the six states of the peninsula, where its last summit in Kuwait lasted only two hours and, recently, lost influence after the announcement by Saudi Arabia and the UAE of the formation of an alliance that replaces its objectives of political and economic coordination and complementarity.
In subjective terms, another victim is former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who maintained an equidistant position from the actors of the crisis and spoke for reconciliation, unlike his president, Donald Trump, who criticized Qatar, a reason that could be the origin of his dismissal from office months later.
Qatari sources believe that Trump's position responded in the sale by the United States to the Saudi kingdom of arms for 400 billion dollars in the span of a decade, a notable boost to the economic objectives proposed in his election campaign.
One actor that may have influenced the subsequent contention on the issue of the US president is the Pentagon, whose command wants to preserve the base it occupies in the Qatari town of Udeid, considered the largest that Washington has in the Levant.
The installation hosts 10,000 soldiers and officers and is a pillar of the US control system over the Persian Gulf, along with those it has in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
In an effort to isolate Qatar in the region, the four countries excluded it from the coalition that attacks the areas of Yemen occupied by members of the Huthi tribe, a net gain because it saves Doha human and economic resources, and it moves it away from that forgotten war that increasingly becomes a military swamp without prospects of success in the medium term.
Despite the complex situation, official sources in Qatar say that the punitive measures against them have been an incentive for the activation of internal potentialities and dismiss the idea of suspending the celebration of the World Cup in 2022.
A year after, the conflict seems inert, however we should ask how long will it take, and if its hidden ramifications, the struggle for dominance in the Persian Gulf between Iran and Saudi Arabia, will not be the breeding ground for an aggravation of the tensions to the point that transcends verbal war and diplomatic sanctions: the explosive elements exist, they only need the spark.
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