An Iranian news service reported that “Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani is scheduled to consult with Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, on bilateral and important regional issues.”
Qatar, alongside Egypt and the United States, has acted as a mediator to secure a ceasefire to end a 10-month war between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken left Qatar on Tuesday following a whirlwind trip to the Middle East to inject urgency into efforts to broker a Gaza ceasefire deal, with an agreement remaining elusive so far.
U.S. Relationships With Qatar
The Middle East may be the most volatile area in the world, and Qatar may be the most reliable U.S. ally in this volatile region. If its leaders get cozy with neighborhood bully Iran, that could be disturbing.
Yet Qatar itself is unstable. Only about 10% of its people are native Qataris. The rest are foreign workers or foreign expatriates with various loyalties. It is the world’s largest exporter of natural gas and the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide per capita.
Officially, Qatar is Muslim. However, about 30 percent of the people are non-Muslim, mostly due to the presence of foreigners. The largest non-Muslim religions are Christians (14%) and Hindus (14%).
Partly because of religion and partially due to politics, Qatar’s relationship with many of its Arab neighbors is strained, at best. The country supports Al Jazeera, an outspoken Muslim media group, and allegedly financed various rebels during the 2011 Arab Spring.
The relative diversity may be one reason the United States has gone all-in on Qatar. It is easier for U.S. servicemembers to go off base and not feel like unwelcome intruders. Qatar has signed defense pacts with the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. The forward headquarters of United States Central Command, Al Udeid Air Base, is located in Qatar and houses about 10,000 American military personnel.
During a 2011 military intervention in Libya, a situation that it helped create, as mentioned above, Qatar deployed six Mirage 2000 fighter jets to assist the NATO air campaign against the Libyan government and special forces to provide training to Libyan rebels.
Qatar was also a staging area during the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. U.S. military planners were likely counting on that level of assistance should war with Iran come. Now, these expectations may need changing.
U.S. Relationships With Iran
In stark contrast, the American relationship with Iran has been pretty terrible for the last 50 years.
During World War II, Soviet and British forces invaded the country in 1941, overthrowing pro-Nazi Reza Shah. During the early Cold War period, it looked like the British and Soviets would partition the country, but the USSR backed down, and Mohammad-Reza Shah rose to power.
At first, the new Shah had the country on the path to constitutional monarchy. However, in 1951, Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq began nationalizing British oil interests. He was deposed in a CIA-led coup in 1953. Thereafter, the Shah brutally suppressed opposition, mostly communists and nationalists. In early June 1963, several days of massive rioting occurred in support of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini following the cleric’s arrest for a speech attacking the Shah. That arrest backfired and sparked the Iranian Revolution.
Since 1979, things have been really bad. First, there was the Iranian hostage crisis, during which Ayatollah Khomeini repeatedly called America the Great Satan.
Fast-forward to 2005. Suspecting an imminent U.S./Israel attack, Iran upped its civilian nuclear energy program, a move that normally precedes weaponization. Iran was an international pariah until Hassan Rouhani ascended to the presidency in 2013. The 2015 nuclear deal followed, and Donald Trump withdrew America from that deal in 2018.
Escalating drone strikes and other such events followed that withdrawal. The back-and-forth continued until April 2024, when an Israeli air strike on an Iranian consulate building in Damascus killed Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Brig Gen Mohammad Reza Zahedi. In retaliation, Iran attacked Israel with over 300 drones and missiles. Although the Iranian attack was mainly intercepted either outside Israeli airspace or over the country itself, it was the biggest missile attack in Iranian history and its first-ever direct attack on Israel.
Contractor Duties
The bullets are not flying in Qatar or Iran. Since Qatar is a U.S. ally, contractors are there now, at least for the time being. If the bullets start flying in Iran, contractors will almost certainly be there.
In quiet war zones like Qatar, contractors focus on security and construction. There is a reason Qatar is widely regarded as one of the safest countries in the Middle East. Contractors provide constant protection, almost always without firing a shot. The presence of tough-guy contractors usually deters even the most reckless evildoer.
Combat support is the order of the day in active war zones. American PMCs cannot assist offensive operations. But they can and do handle defensive tasks. This activity frees up more resources for offensive operations.
Injury Compensation Available
Whether or not there is a war, contractors are constantly in danger. When they are injured overseas, a Defense Base Act lawyer obtains compensation for:
- Lost Wages: Most injured contractors receive two-thirds of their AWW (average weekly wage) for the duration of their temporary or permanent disabilities. Significantly, the AWW calculation includes prior and future wages. If Alice was scheduled for a pay bump and her illness or injury causes her to miss that milestone, her AWW must reflect that loss.
- Medical Bills: The DBA also pays all reasonable necessary medical bills. Insurance company lawyers frequently challenge medical bills on the grounds that they are not reasonably necessary. Defense Base Act lawyers often partner with independent doctors during these disputes.
Usually, victims have ten days to report their injuries to their supervisors. Shortly thereafter, a mediator oversees a settlement conference. However, since this settlement conference is based on a paper review, fair settlements are rare.
Therefore, most DBA cases are resolved at or shortly before an Administrative Law Judge appeal hearing.
For more information about DBA eligibility, contact Barnett, Lerner, Karsen, Frankel & Castro, P.A.