In a rare public appearance, Qatar’s head of the Intelligence and Security Authority Brigadier General Khalid Mohammed Al-Nuaimi revealed how Qatar took the dramatic decision to redeploy its entire defensive systems in just six hours to counter Iran's war threats.
Addressing the Global Security Forum in Doha on Tuesday, Al-Nuaimi said the redeployment was “unprecedented and successful”, based on eight months of adapting Qatar’s forces, defence capabilities, and military doctrine, which had been built for a totally different threat landscape.
When asked about Qatar’s response to countering drones during the war, Qatar’s head of Intelligence replied that the six-hour overhaul was based on fast-moving changes to Qatar’s defence systems, both at concept level, but also in the allocation of defence assets.
“We adapted. we redeployed and we did it within six hours,” Al-Nuaimi revealed, adding that “we were caught off guard, yet we adapted rapidly, out of sheer necessity.”
Also during the Global Security Forum, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Dr Majed al-Ansari said the Qatar-mediated US-Iran negotiations “are ongoing and we are seeing engagement from both parties.”
“The fact that we are not hearing about it is a good sign that we are doing our job properly,” the Qatari diplomat added amid the rising tensions and concerns that the Iran war may restart.
Washington's fundamental shift in the Middle East
In addressing those worrying concerns, US ambassador to Turkey and Special Presidential Envoy for Syria and Iraq Tom Barrack told the forum that "America wants a peace deal” which would be based on “ceasefire in the straits” as well as a focus on “easing the pain on the Iranian people”.
"Prosperity is the only answer," Barrack underlined as a way out of the current standoff, adding that "we don’t need a reboot" of the previous US-Iran peace memorandum.
He identified the obstacle to a deal as a “lack of trust.”
“What has happened from the beginning of these discussions and negotiations is a lack of trust," Barrack explained, which comes down to the fact that the "IRGC does not trust the US. And the US does not trust IRGC."
The US envoy said he did not know if the Iran war was a mistake but admitted that it had “unintended consequences” and that US President Donald Trump is a "no forever wars president."
Barrack told the forum in Qatar that the US will not leave the Middle East, even if in the region “what everybody is saying: OK, I cannot rely on America to solve all my problems,” explaining that “the bargain is not to control, but to not leave. We are not leaving.”
"America is the guarantor to the world for the last 80 years and it is no longer there," the US diplomat said, explaining that "what is happening in this administration is not an abandonment, it is a message for realignment."
The US envoy appeared to contradict one of the US administration’s declared goals in launching the Iran war, which was regime change in Tehran.
Barrack spoke broadly about how the US pursued 23 regime changes across the Middle East and concluded that "every time we try and intervene, change the person or the regime, it seems to have been a mistake."
Instead, he said, the US’ goal is to "bring everybody, put them in a tent, give them coffee, put the guns and daggers on the table, and let’s figure something else out," through “patience, presence, dialogue."
In this context, the top US diplomat also commented on the escalating tensions between Israel and Turkey, saying that "my belief is Israel is way too smart to actually pick a real fight with Turkey. I don’t think Israel wants that, I know Turkey does not want that."
'Houthis are here to stay,' former MI6 chief says
Meanwhile at the forum, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Dr al-Ansari also reiterated his country’s position on Yemen that alongside the other Gulf nations “Qatar is supporting our brothers in Saudi Arabia in defending their sovereignty against this attack.”
Also commenting on the Yemen war, the former head of the UK’s foreign intelligence agency MI6 Sir John Sawers told the Doha Global Security Forum that “the Houthis are here to stay.
"They are not going to be defeated, and they are going to remain in control of a large part of Yemen for the foreseeable future," Sawers said.
"The Houthis have got their own national Yemen agenda," he explained, adding that the group "exposed the limited options that Saudi Arabia has in terms of dealing with" them over the last 10 years, as their efforts "to sustain an alternative government (in Yemen) have not been successful over the last 10 years."