‘Arsonist and Firefighter’: Radical Islamic State Cozies Up to Washington with Money

You might think, based on the warm relationship between Washington and Qatar, that the wealthy Gulf nation, awash in natural gas, is an outpost of democracy.

After all, Qatar hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East. It will also be home to a new Trump International Golf Course and has given the White House a $400 million 747 jetliner.

However, Qatar is an emirate, basically a kingdom, and according to critics, no defender of Western values.

“Qatar is the opposite of all that,” warns Yigal Carmon, the head of the Middle East Media Research Institute or MEMRI, which monitors what Qatar’s leaders say in Arabic. “Qatar is an Islamist ideological emirate that seeks in every single step of its activities to promote jihad.”

Carmon calls Qatar a hub of Muslim extremism and a major source of international terrorism.

“They do it with what you would call ‘soft power,’ using their immense wealth, but also by ‘hard power,’ by supporting every jihadist movement on the face of the planet, not just in the Arab and Muslim world,” he explained.

Qatar’s Many Ties to Islamic Terrorism

The laundry list is a long one. The mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, was a Qatari government employee. Qatar has long sponsored the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks a worldwide Islamic government. Qatar finances and hosts Hamas and has backed Palestinian terrorism. It has strong ties to Iran and the Taliban. It broadcasts antisemitism and lies about Israel, as well as anti-American propaganda, through its global TV channel, Al Jazeera. There are also reports Qatar funds terrorists in Africa who kill Christians.

On October 7th, Qatar blamed Israel for the Hamas massacre, and when Israel killed the mastermind behind the attack, Yahya Sinwar, the mother of Qatar’s emir, in a now deleted post on X, wrote that Sinwar “will live on” and Israel “will be gone.”

Yigal Carmon held up a large photo, saying, “This is the Emir of Qatar and the former commander of Hamas. Look at the smiles of love on the faces. The erasing, the elimination of Israel, is the core belief.”

Qatari Influence in the White House
An Islamic nation that hates Israel and supports terrorism might not sound surprising, but Qatari influence runs deep in Washington and within the Trump Administration. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, formerly of the lobbying firm Ballard Partners, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin have either lobbied for Qatar, worked for firms that did, or had business relationships with the emirate.  

Last month, former Education Secretary Bill Bennett also registered as a lobbyist for Qatar. His stated role will be to say that the $6 billion Qatar has given to U.S. higher education is not for the purpose of spreading Islamic radicalism. 

Qatar has spent almost $100 billion to curry favor with the White House, Congress, academia, think tanks, and corporations. It also bought influence during the Biden Administration.

PHOTO: Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani welcomes President Trump at the Amiri Diwan in Doha, Qatar, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

What Qatar Wants

There are plenty of nations trying to cozy up to Washington, and they’re using money to do it. The question is, what does Qatar want in return?

Natalie Ecanow, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, says Qatar wants to be both arsonist and firefighter.

Ecanow says, “What that means is that Qatar sponsors a host of terrorist and extremist groups. Think Hamas, think the Taliban. So that’s the arsonist part. The firefighter part is Qatar coming in and positioning itself as an indispensable, peace broker, stability broker in all corners of the world.”

Ecanow says what Qatar seems to want with its money is U.S. protection and a privileged position in policy decisions.

“When Qatar engages in more adversarial behaviors, let’s say sponsoring Hamas, hosting the Taliban, engaging in corruption. Western policymakers aren’t necessarily going to hold Qatar accountable to that because they have this close relationship, because they have, they’re predisposed to see Qatar in a favorable light,” Ecanow said.

Is Qatar Reforming?

Qatar did sign a declaration last month condemning Hamas and calling on it to relinquish control of Gaza. Is this a sign of change? Qatar’s embassy in Washington did not respond to our request for answers. Carmon, the counterterrorism advisor to two Israeli prime ministers, said America is being fooled.

When asked about the 747 being given to the U.S. by Qatar, President Trump suggested he’d be stupid to turn down “a free, very expensive airplane.”

But if nothing is “free” in geopolitics, the price of the plane, and all the billions being dumped on Washington, is more Qatari influence, as the tiny emirate, which sees itself as the true seat of radical Islam, hopes to leverage its close relationship with the United States.