Small State Empowerment Through Power Competition: Qatari Hedging Between Iran and Saudi Arabia
A small peninsula nation in the Persian Gulf, Qatar geostrategically straddles Iran and Saudi Arabia’s power competition in the Middle East. Qatar navigates this competition through strategic hedging: resisting the orbit of one regional power through situational cooperation with the other, resulting in an oscillating and ambiguous policy toward both. Qatar’s hedging, evident in its positions toward Iran’s proxy network and nuclear program that placate both Iranian and Saudi interests, has allowed Qatar to expand its influence and autonomy beyond what its small power status would imply. Qatar has leveraged the Saudi-Iran power competition to affect international diplomatic outcomes and challenge regional precedents, all while resisting hegemonic influence. As such, Qatar demonstrates small states’ active role in international power dynamics. The Qatari case exemplifies how hegemonic rivalries can empower small states through their alignment strategy—a capability that U.S. policy making should not underestimate in the era of great power competition.
Explaining Qatari Power
Emphasizing material power, a neorealist international relations lens characterizes Qatar as a small state. Qatar’s territory, population, economy, human and natural resources, and military are limited in size—restricting its ability to guarantee its security through its own resources. Nearby Iran and Saudi Arabia also dwarf Qatar in material power, further highlighting its smallness. Neorealism posits that, without self-sufficient and relatively dominant material power, small states are constrained by the behaviors of and relations between larger states. In other words, international power dynamics act upon small states; small states do not act upon them. Small states like Qatar, therefore, are not worth paying much attention to.
However, Qatar’s hosting of high-level conflict negotiations, international sporting events, and prestigious American university campuses has demanded international attention. Qatar is often said to “punch above its weight,” attaining international status and recognition beyond what its neorealist material smallness predicts. Conventional explanations for this paradox turn to a neoliberal framework, highlighting Qatar’s soft power. These narratives explain that Qatar’s oil wealth allows it to fund initiatives that promote an enticing national brand rooted in cross-cultural dialogue, luxury, and innovation. This national brand attracts international favor that facilitates opportunities for greater influence on the world stage.
Centralizing Qatari wealth, the soft power explanation for Qatar’s disproportionate influence largely ignores structural power dynamics. It accepts that a neorealist view of the international system implies Qatar’s weakness. Yet, Qatar’s empowerment through—not in spite of—structural power dynamics should not be overlooked. Rather than simply buying international status, Qatar adeptly leverages regional power dynamics by hedging between Saudi Arabia and Iran. This strategy allows Qatar to influence international diplomatic outcomes and challenge regional precedents while insulating it from larger states’ orbits.
Between Iran and Saudi Arabia
Iran and Saudi Arabia have competed for power and influence in the Arab Gulf since the Islamic Republic of Iran was established in the 1979 revolution. As a hub for the Wahhabist strand of Sunni Islam, Saudi Arabia was threatened by the revolution. Subsequent Iranian agendas to export the revolution to neighboring Arab states and the empowerment of Shia Islam challenged Saudi Arabia’s religious and political leadership of the Arab Muslim world. The Iran-Saudi Arabia competition has also manifested in a regional arms race, a battle for leadership in the oil industry, and rival efforts for social and cultural influence.
Qatar navigates the Iran-Saudi power competition by institutionalizing alignment with Saudi Arabia while developing official ties with Iran. Motivated by integration with its Arab neighbors, Qatar is part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): a regional political and economic union of Arab Gulf states dominated by Saudi Arabia. Qatar has also developed a relationship with Iran based on Qatari leaders’ personal rapport with their Iranian counterparts. Qatar’s relations with Iran are pragmatic and predominantly motivated by the countries’ shared sovereignty over the world’s largest gas field.
Qatar uses its ties with each regional hegemon to offset the other’s influence. For example, Qatar withstood the 2017-2021 Saudi-led diplomatic and economic blockade against it by increasing cooperation with Iran. To maintain its energy export lines, Qatar secured access to Iranian territorial waters. Increasing cooperation with Iran pressured Saudi Arabia to lift the blockade, fearing increased Iranian influence in the Arab Gulf. As such, the Iran-Saudi power competition creates an opportunity for Qatar to pursue its own agenda by leveraging the hegemons’ rivalries against one.
Qatar and Iran’s Proxies
Qatar’s strategic relationship with critical Iranian proxies Hezbollah and Hamas is one key way in which Qatar hedges between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Hamas leadership has long enjoyed a political safe haven in Doha, while Qatar has financed Hezbollah and reportedly supported the group since the 2006 Lebanon civil war. To inoculate against widespread Islamist anti-regime sentiment, Qatar has often taken a more lenient stance toward certain extremist Islamist groups than its Gulf counterparts. Nonetheless, Qatar has also aligned with aspects of the Saudi-led position on Hamas and Hezbollah by accepting the GCC’s terrorist designation against Hezbollah and countering illicit Hezbollah financial networks. Qatar also signed the 2013 Riyadh agreements, which stipulated that Qatar refrain from supporting Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations.
Qatar’s flexible relations with Iran’s proxy network have allowed the small state to mediate critical international conflicts. By converging and diverging with Iran and Saudi Arabia’s positions on Islamist militias, Qatar developed inroads with a diverse set of international actors and emerged as a key negotiator during the 2023 Israel-Hamas war. Qatar’s valuable communication lines with and measured opposition to Hamas and Hezbollah allowed it to position itself as a necessary mediator between the West, the Arab world, and violent non-state actors. Since the October 7th Hamas attacks, Doha has been a hub for Israeli, American, and Arab negotiations. Qatari officials were also key in drafting the 2025 Israel-Hamas ceasefire. Qatar’s key role in international diplomatic outcomes, enabled by its hedging between Iran and Saudi Arabia regarding Islamist militias, exemplifies how regional power dynamics are a mechanism for Qatari empowerment.
The Iran-Saudi power competition created a regional divide in positions toward Islamist militias. Inherently, this competition also created an opportunity for the divide to be transcended. Qatar seized this opportunity by developing a diplomatic network connected to both sides, which increased its value to the international community eager to negotiate a settlement to the Israel-Hamas war. Therefore, structural power dynamics need not prescribe weakness for small states. While larger powers certainly impose upon small states, small states can also push back. Qatar does so by hedging between competing regional powers.
Qatar and Iran’s Nuclear Pursuits
Iran’s nuclear program is another key realm in which Qatar hedges between Iran and Saudi Arabia. In early March, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani publicly warned against a military action targeting Iran’s nuclear sites and urged a diplomatic solution. Qatar’s Iran-aligned rhetoric came amid the Trump administration’s revamped maximum pressure campaign on Iran and recent threats to strike Iran to deter its nuclear pursuits. Preserving its access to natural resources underlies Qatar’s interest in preventing a military strike on Iran, which has been particularly vulnerable since October 2024 Israeli airstrikes destroyed its most advanced air defense systems. Qatar has assessed that it risks running out of potable water in three days if Iran’s nuclear sites are targeted. Yet, Qatar also appeases Saudi Arabia’s staunch objection to a nuclear Iran. Qatari officials have resisted Iran’s pleas to release $6 billion of Iranian funds frozen by international sanctions and held in a Qatari bank. As a GCC member, Qatar also endorses regular joint U.S.-GCC statements condemning Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Qatar’s ambivalent approach toward Iran’s nuclear program has allowed Qatar to challenge a key GCC precedent: pro-Saudi foreign policy in exchange for protection under Saudi Arabia’s security umbrella. Upholding Saudi Arabia’s opposition to a nuclear Iran in practice allows Qatar to maintain its GCC membership and therefore Saudi-backed security guarantees. As the GCC’s largest material power, Saudi Arabia is critical to guaranteeing the smaller states’ security. However, aligning with Iran’s nuclear agenda in rhetoric emboldens Qatar to pursue an autonomous foreign policy. By dissuading hawkish policies on Iran’s nuclear program while Iran is critically vulnerable, Qatar is nurturing its nascent diplomatic and economic ties with Iran. Iranian cooperation is Qatar’s insurance policy in the event of Saudi frustration, as it was during the 2017 Saudi-led blockade. This insurance policy frees Qatar to pursue Saudi-opposed foreign policies, such as maintaining military ties with Turkey and providing financial and media support to the Muslim Brotherhood. As such, Qatar leverages the Iran-Saudi competition on nuclear matters to resist the historical GCC norm of Saudi-aligned foreign policy.
The Iran-Saudi power competition exacerbates the contention of already high-stakes issues like nuclear armament. This sensitivity has allowed Qatar to resist regional foreign policy norms through only marginal acts—like joint statements and public warnings. As a result, power dynamics have been a venue of empowerment for Qatar. This trend revises the neorealist narrative that small states are merely shaped and weakened by the international system. Through their alignment behavior, small states like Qatar can also shape and derive power from the international system.
Lessons for Great Power Competition
In the era of power competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Qatari case warns against underestimating small states caught between great U.S. and PRC spheres of influence. Like Qatar, these states can leverage power dynamics to expand their influence and autonomy. Power competition presents small states with a choice in alignment strategy, and in pursuing these strategies, small states can affect great power dynamics. Far from passive entities on which great powers impose their agendas, small states can be active participants in shaping great power competition. Misconstruing these states as stagnant pawns risks limiting strategic options by focusing too narrowly on hegemonic rivals in policymaking.
Views expressed are the author’s own and do not represent the views of GSSR, Georgetown University, or any other entity. Image Credit: Atalayar