Qatar must rethink the US's Al Udeid Military Air Base
The assassination of one of Iran's highest-ranking generals and commander of Al Quds Force, part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, 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 while travelling to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi. Iran retaliated by targeting US military facilities in Iraq. Days after the assassination, it fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi air bases housing US forces. According to The Times of Israel, Israel aided the US in that operation.
The leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed by Israel in the Iranian capital Tehran after attending the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian, another violation of the sovereignty of Iran and international law. The killing of Haniyeh in July 2024 came on the heels of the killing of a number of Iranian diplomats at Iran's embassy in Damascus, Syria, on 1 April 2024. Israel — with the support of the US — has continued to assassinate Iranian officials inside Iran at will.
Qatar had joint military operations with the US during the Operation Desert Storm in Iraq in 1991. After the operations, Qatar and the US signed a defence cooperation agreement. This was expanded in 1996 to include the building of Al Udeid Military Air Base at a cost of more than $1 billion. It is the largest US military base in the Middle East.
Iran attacked Al Udeid in retaliation for the US's attacks on the Iranian nuclear sites in Fordo, Natanz and Esfahan in June 2025. Although the strikes were downplayed by the US and Qatar — indeed they seemed to have been choreographed — they exposed a new fault line in future US-Qatar military cooperation. The question on the minds of many Qataris is: 'What will happen next time 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 Israeli-US war 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 Iran's recent attacks on US military installations in Al Udeid, when Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt led a blockade against Qatar in 2017, there was no forewarning from the US, Al Udeid's touted superior military intelligence notwithstanding.
According to Qatar's 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'.
Possible future conflicts involving the US and Iran have raised serious concerns about the safety of the US's assets and personnel in the region. It has also triggered a debate, particularly in the US media, about the viability of, and rationale for, the country's continued involvement in Israel's wars in the region.
(Graphic: John McCann/M&G)
Leading supporters of President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again movement, such as executive chairperson of Breitbart News Steve Bannon, and right-wing journalist and social media influencer Tucker Carlson, have questioned 'the US's continuing blind support of Israel's wars in the Middle East'.
Carlson, a known Trump supporter and 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 [Grand Old Party] hawkish consensus on Israel'.
Despite Trump's unwavering support of Israel, the US president has been critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's warmongering strategy in the region. Trump has entered into lucrative business relationships with countries in the Persian Gulf region recently and Netanyahu stands to disturb those relationships.
The US and the 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 artificial intelligence products'.
According to The Guardian, Saudi Arabia has struck a similar deal for semiconductors, obtaining the promise of the sale of hundreds of thousands of Nvidia Blackwell chips to Humain, an AI start-up owned by a 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 — they share gas exploration sites in the South Pars-North Dome area. Located in the Persian Gulf, they are by far the world's largest natural gas fields.
There is also a people-to-people relationship between Qatar and Iran dating back to time immemorial.
The next attack on Iran by the US or Israel could escalate and spread the war to Qatar. The US managed to move its assets from Al Udeid to other locations in Qatar before Iran's attacks last month. What guarantees does Qatar have that Iran won't go after those locations in future? There is a possibility that, if attacked, Iran will once again retaliate. What will happen then? Retaliatory attacks could go beyond a mere violation of Qatar's airspace and sovereignty — they could 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 that the threat in the region has morphed. Consequently, Qatar needs to consider new defence infrastructure. Al Udeid presents more political and diplomatic challenges than opportunities.
Thembisa Fakude is a senior research fellow at Africa Asia Dialogues and a director at the Mail & Guardian.
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