Doha can make diplomacy work

Doha is treading a delicate path. It is still very much a staunch US ally while also supporting pro-Iranian political factions in Gaza and Lebanon.

Qatar is home to a US military base at Al-Udeid, which served as a command centre during the second Iraq war in 2003.

But it also has good relations with Tehran, and went as far as inviting Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a January gathering of what was meant to be an extraordinary meeting of the Arab League. Having failed to summon the required two-thirds quorum of Arab League members to discuss the Gaza crisis, Doha's leaders controversially invited Ahmadinejad and Hamas chairman Khaled Meshaal, snubbing the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.

Rather than solve the Middle East's problems, the hastily convened Doha meeting served instead to highlight differences in the region. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as the traditional diplomatic deal brokers in the region, did not attend the Doha summit, partly in protest at Qatar's increasingly busy diplomatic agenda. They instead discussed the Gaza issue in Kuwait at a pre-arranged economic summit, three days later.

Doha-style diplomacy may at first seem unsophisticated, as reflected in its defiance of the Arab League members' votes against the extraordinary meeting it proposed in January.

But last May's successful signing in Doha of a peace agreement for Lebanon put Qatar firmly on the map.

This success may not have been replicated in its ongoing attempts to secure a peace agreement for Darfur, but it would be naive to dismiss Doha's success in Lebanon as a one-off. Qatar's wealth and its links with Iran, sets it apart from the traditional diplomatic powers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia.