Episode Info
- Season27
- Episode18
Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Dr. Majed al-Ansari
Dr. Majed al-Ansari is a Qatari Advisor to the Prime Minister discussing Qatar's role as a mediator in the Middle Eastern conflict.
Episode Summary
In this week's episode of One Decision, host Christina Ruffini travels with Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Rome, where foreign ministers gathered for the final Group of Seven (G7) meeting of the Biden administration. She and resident spymaster Sir Richard Dearlove, the former Chief of Britain's MI6, sit down with Qatari Advisor to the Prime Minister, Dr. Majed al-Ansari. They discuss Qatar's role as a mediator in the Middle Eastern conflict and their stance on foreign defense for Ukraine. The conversation also covers the political future of Afghanistan and the ongoing civil war in Sudan.
Listen & Subscribe
- Watch on YouTube
- Listen on Apple Podcasts
- Listen on Spotify
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
Raffini: Welcome to One Decision. I'm your host, Christina Raffini, and we're here in a city just outside Rome, which is the site of the G7 ministers summit. Foreign leaders from the seven largest economies are here, but they've also invited an unprecedented number of representatives from other countries, including the Middle East and the Asia Pacific. So why did they do that? Why did the G7, which is usually a bit of a private clique, ask so many other leaders to join them? Well, we asked the summit's host, Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani, who held the event in his hometown, Fiuggi. Why is it important to expand beyond the G7 countries? Was that something you wanted to do? I heard you personally wanted to invite peace, for stability, for growth. Our job is to have less unemployment. He said all countries, including G7 nations, have to play a role in fostering peace around the world, and that that effort aligned with some of the G7 stated goals for this conference. The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, of course, were at the top of the agenda. And it was during the summit that news broke that Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a ceasefire deal, allegedly, if it holds, about sixty days. But this came just hours after Israel had conducted a series of strikes targeting Hezbollah, leaving smoke rising from neighborhoods across Beirut. We asked US secretary of state Antony Blinken if the US had been informed of those operations in advance. NEWS CLIP [1:26] Yes. We're seeing these attacks in Beirut directed against Hezbollah. But every single day, Hezbollah has been launching projectiles into Israel, into Northern Israel, as it's done virtually every day since October 7, which is how this problem started. So, again, I'm not gonna speak to that. We've been focused on trying to see that this ceasefire agreement gets over the line.
Raffini: Of course, this is Blinken's final G7 press conference as the Biden administration comes to an end. And with that in mind, we also asked what the change of president could mean for Ukraine. Christina Raffini with One Decision. Hi, mister secretary. Evening. Do you think the European consensus on support for Ukraine will hold if the next administration pulls back from that effort? Can it survive without the full throated support of America and particularly the American president? NEWS CLIP [2:17] This has been, in many ways, a global effort. We have more than 50 countries who have been supporting Ukraine, and I believe, based on everything I'm hearing, we'll continue to do that. And what we're determined to do in the remainder of this administration is to do everything possible to ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to be able, as I said, to fight through 2025 if necessary, or, if there's a negotiation, to be able to negotiate from a position of strength.
Raffini: One of the nations invited to the expanded G7 here in Italy has played a role mediating conflicts in Ukraine, as well as the Middle East, even Venezuela, and parts of Africa. That nation is Qatar, a small country with an ever expanding global foreign policy reach. In today's episode, co-host Sir Richard Dearlove and I sit down with Doctor Majed al-Ansari, Qatar's chief spokesperson and senior advisor to the Prime Minister. He's personally been involved and in the room for many of these negotiations, and he spoke to us about the latest in the Middle East, the prospects for peace in Ukraine, Sudan, Venezuela, and many, many other issues around the world.
INTERVIEW
Raffini: Your government, and you particularly, have been very involved in some of these negotiations, but especially for hostages in Gaza. I'm wondering if you can tell us why now you think that those negotiations have completely broken down. And do you think there's an ability to revive that? Or are we at a point where the two parties are just not able to talk to each other for the foreseeable future?
Ansari: Christina, going back to November 2023, when we had our first pause, at the end of that pause, when the pause collapsed, we were facing down the barrel of the failure of the talks for so many reasons. But one and foremost of those reasons was the fact that we did not see real seriousness. We did not see a real belief in the process itself and support for the process itself from the parties.
Raffini: From both parties or from one party in particular?
Ansari: As we always have said, from both parties. Now, I won't name names in this manner, but obviously there is a party that was using this for political posturing more than the other, for internal politics more than the other. We have seen consecutive targeting of the mediators themselves, including Qatar, and sabotage of the talks as they were going on. Now, in April of last year, we announced that we were reassessing our role as mediators, because we wanted to ask a very clear question: Is what we are doing now as mediators helpful to bring about peace, or is it just being used and utilized for political gain? And now I think the statements we issued noted to that specifically. We will not be used as political punching bags. We will not be blackmailed within the process of mediation, and we do not want to be a force for prolonging this war rather than ending it.
Raffini: Who was more difficult to deal with in the room? The Hamas representatives or the Israeli representatives?
Ansari: Well, Christina, first of all, they're not in the same room.
Raffini: Correct. But can you — I think people are curious. Can you talk us through as much as you are able, kind of the logistics of how this happens? You know, are you shuttling from hotel to hotel? Who makes the call to you? You know, just kinda talk us through how this works.
Ansari: Sure. This is easier than answering the first question, I must say. Let me take you through a cycle of negotiations as they happen here in Doha. So by the time we have some breakthrough or some idea on what to be circulated next, we first start by a principals meeting, where the director of the CIA and Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, our prime minister, minister of foreign affairs, and the head of the Egyptian intelligence would come to Doha or to Egypt, wherever the discussions are going to be held. They hold the principals meeting, they agree on the path within the cycle, what is going to be discussed, how it is going to be discussed, and the timelines. And then, whatever is agreed there, is taken to Hamas. Sometimes it's in real time, meaning that our negotiators would leave the place where the meeting is taking place between the principals and go to the negotiating team on the Hamas side, explain exactly what the discussion was, and then get their feedback back to the room. Or it happens a day after that when we call them in for the discussions. Usually, if there are no talks, there's no negotiations, they're outside Doha, so we call them in for the negotiations. Post that, post the principal meeting, post the initial responses, we go to technical meetings, meaning people of the second layer meeting in either Cairo or Doha to discuss how to implement. Now, this is still excluding Hamas. This is all the other parties, so Israel, Egypt, Qatar, the United States. They get together, work day and night. We have our own legal people on the negotiating team in order to write the language the right way, and then it gets translated into the relevant languages, and then we have a document. Once we have a document, that document is taken to both sides. We ask for a formal official reply to the documents. Probably we get something like yes but from both sides, or we get a straight out no. In both cases, the replies are collected and then they are either applied to the document for another version and then the cycle starts again, or we start another round of thinking of another solution or another language that can be discussed. Now, this is one way of doing things, but all through the process, regardless of these cycles happening or not, we would have our negotiators on the phone almost 24/7, trying to get both sides to agree on the nitty gritty and the small things, and to gauge the level of acceptance and tolerance for certain ideas. And as I said, we have our people in the negotiating team, especially on the legal side, writing the language and proposing specific language for specific articles, so we can end up with a document to be shared. The last time a full document was prepared in that manner was the July 2, but there was also another cycle that happened just days before with the new American proposal. And obviously, whenever there's a breakdown of talks, we don't stop negotiating. So we continue approaching both sides individually and asking for, okay, so what's the next step? What can we do now? We try to bring in innovative ideas. And that is how basically you can keep the momentum going, by keeping the channels of communication open. And then if there is an agreement like what happened in November, then we have an operations room in Doha that is responsible for the implementation. We monitor everything that is happening on the ground while the pause is taking place. I remember in one of the hostage releases, our negotiator had to stay on the phone for ten consecutive hours to make sure that the handover happens safely and that the hostages are safe with their families and the prisoners have been released on the Israeli side.
Raffini: They were essentially on the same line for ten hours, or they were making calls for ten hours?
Ansari: Yes. Yes. On the same line, on the same call for ten hours, and I applaud the telephone companies for keeping that call going for ten hours, certainly. And it's exhausting. It's frustrating. I can tell you everybody in the negotiating team is really tired and really frustrated, but it's something that we pride ourselves in. It's part of our DNA. We even wrote it into the constitution, the latest constitutional amendments, that mediation is who we are. It's the embodiment of what our founder said about Qatar when he described Qatar as the Mecca of the oppressed, capital, Al Molium. And therefore, we don't take that responsibility lightly. I'm trying, of course, to prolong my answer in order to get away from answering your first question. So I hope I took enough time in order to persuade you to ask a different question.
Raffini: Obviously, it is difficult to deal with a negotiation like this because tempers are so high, the issue is so fraught, and, you know, there are many, many lives on the line. But what I had heard and what has been reported is that, you know, no matter — the process of the negotiation was hard enough, but one of the prevailing issues was, and tell me if I'm wrong, please, if Hamas agreed to it, that mostly stayed in place because the people who were agreeing were in command and control, whereas the issue was with, if the head of Mossad agreed to something during negotiations, you would think you had a deal and they would go back to Tel Aviv, and then Netanyahu and some of the other government ministers would disagree and blow it apart. Was that a prevailing issue in some of these negotiations?
Ansari: So, Christina, in all similar negotiations, you have the problem of the mandate of the negotiating team. Sir Richard has decades of experience in working on similar issues. The negotiating team on the table are not always the decision makers, the final decision makers, and therefore they have to go back to their capitals, they have to go back to their groups or whatever it is. It's a similar situation with these talks. So the Israeli negotiating team had to go back, obviously, to the Israeli government, to the cabinet, and get a final approval on whatever language they approve. And then also the negotiating team on Hamas' side need to go back to their leadership, which in Hamas was a very complicated process because they had to get also approval from the other members of the political office. Some of them reside in Gaza, like Yahya Sinwar and others at the time. And they have the Shura Council and they have something called the factional meeting in Gaza, which means that there are a lot of people to get buy-in from before you agree to the language. But this is the nature of the beast. This is how you hold negotiations, wherever you're going to hold them. It's by trying to convince the people on the table and give them enough ammunition to go back to their sides with a very realistic and plausible suggested language that can get approval, can get an agreement on both sides. Now, sadly, we were not able to do that, but we came very close at so many times.
Dearlove: There's also talk in the press, well, actually, publicly than that, of a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in terms of discussions between the two countries. I mean, do you think that this framework is gonna bear fruit vis a vis now what's happening in Lebanon?
Ansari: So as you know, Sir Richard, this started a while back, and I think there was a realization in the region as a whole, way before the October 7 and way before the turmoil that we are seeing right now, that the only way forward was dialogue. And we have seen the beginning of the rapprochement with ambassadors going back to Tehran and restating diplomatic relations, talks taking place in Iraq. We've seen the agreement brokered by Beijing. And then we had the meeting in Doha with the new government. President Pezeshkian was in Doha for the Asian Dialogue Summit. And on the side, we held a meeting between himself and GCC foreign ministers. It was a very productive meeting where the issues were put on the table. And then there was also a bilateral meeting between the Saudi foreign minister and the Iranian president and the Iranian foreign minister. And for us, this is always a good sign. We've always advocated in the region that you can't — we're living in a stone's throw distance from Iran. I can give you just one example, Sir Richard, the Bushehr nuclear facilities are closer to Doha than they are to Bahrain. So if there was a safety incident in Bushehr, it affects Doha before it affects Tehran. And therefore, it is in all of our interests collectively to make sure that there is always open dialogue with Iran, there is always a way of working with Iran. During the Arab Spring, Qatar had a very clear position against Iranian incursions in the Arab world. We were actively working against that. But at the same time, we maintained our working relationship with Iranians, and this has helped us throughout the years in being instrumental in talking to Iran and seeing how we can find situations or deescalate whenever situations arise. And this was useful now during the current cycle of escalation between Iran and Israel, and it is useful in the Lebanese case at the moment and in Gaza. And the only way forward for all of us in the region is to continue talking, and we are seeing this positively happening now that even with the current escalation in the region, even with the current turmoil, even with the language and the narrative coming into the region from the outside about escalation and about conflict, that this rapprochement is happening, this positive momentum is happening, and we hope it continues.
Raffini: What is the current status of the Hamas political office in Doha? Is it suspended, or is it closed? Because there seems to be some mixed reporting on that. I've seen your recent comments, and then I've also seen, you know, an unnamed US state department official commenting to some outlets that it has been closed at the request of the Americans. Can you clarify for us?
Ansari: I mean, I would like to meet a lot of these unnamed officials that keep making my job more difficult. But I'll say it very clearly, Christina. When it comes to our role in the mediation right now, it is as announced. We have suspended our mediation pending both parties show seriousness in going back to the negotiating table. We will not continue mediating unless there is a show of seriousness from both sides to come to negotiations in good faith. Now, the political office in Doha is not a multi story building with hundreds of people working in it. It's a symbolic function of the negotiating team being able to function in Doha during the negotiations. Therefore, if there are no negotiations, if there are no talks, then the function of the political office ceases to exist. At the moment, what I can confirm very clearly is that the negotiating team is not in Doha.
Raffini: Okay. I think that might be where the confusion is. It's not like a physical building that you all are locking them out of. It's more of a symbolic operating base.
Ansari: Yeah. We didn't take the keys and vacate the building because there is no such building to do that to. Now, that said, the decision to close down the office permanently, if that decision will be taken anytime in the future, will be announced by the Qatari government. We will not do it in secret. We will go out there. You will see me going out in front of the podium and saying, we have decided to do that. That decision has not been taken. And you cannot take such a decision while you are suspending your mediation. Because effectively, if you take that decision, you are ending any hope of getting back to the negotiations.
Raffini: Why do you think the Biden administration has had such a hard time exerting influence over Israel, prime minister Netanyahu in particular? Why do you think that has been such a difficult order? And do you think overall they failed in getting their objectives across to what is usually named as, you know, a critical, important, very special ally of the United States?
Ansari: What I can say is that we've worked very closely with the Biden administration for years now, but especially in this last year since the conflict started in October. And what I can tell you is that we have worked in all seriousness with our partners in the United States. We have seen so many visits by US officials to Doha. Doha became the second home for a lot of these officials, including those involved in the negotiations, the director of the CIA, amongst them Secretary Blinken. We know that unless the United States exerts real pressure on Israel, it is very unlikely that we see any change in the parameters of the conflict. We depend on the United States' role in this conflict to maintain and to bring about an end to this conflict and to provide the necessary leverage in order for the conflict to end. Unless that happens, it's very difficult to imagine how we're going to see an end to the crisis.
Dearlove: Doctor Ansari, can I ask you about what I would describe as the forgotten civil war in Sudan? Because in some respects, it's just as lethal, just as tragic, just as devastating as what's happening in Gaza. I mean, can you explain to us where you think the situation sits at the moment?
Ansari: It's especially heartbreaking for us in Qatar to see what is happening in Sudan. We have a very large Sudanese community here in Qatar. Most of us remember in our childhoods, our Sudanese colleagues in schools, Sudanese teachers, and they are part of the fabric of the Qatari community. When this war broke out, the first thing that Qatar did was start an air bridge with Port Sudan, and one of the first things was evacuating Qatari residents, Sudanese Qatari residents into Doha, and it's still ongoing whenever we identify such individuals, either special cases or people who have Qatari residency or their families or basically anybody with medical needs that we can help with. And, of course, along with sending aid to Sudan. What is happening right now? The massacres, the rape, the killing, the fact that Khartoum, one of the most vibrant cities in Africa and in the Arab world, is now a ghost town, is an unfathomable reality that no one in the region wants to see happen. And we are appalled at the lack of interest by the international community to what is happening in Sudan and by the failure of the international community to do anything substantial. I'm not talking here about Security Council resolutions and politicization of the issue, but even when it comes to coming out and condemning very openly, weaponizing this conflict and giving mercenaries and militias weapons to kill civilians and commit so many massacres in Sudan today, it's just something that the international community should not be allowed to get away with, to be honest. And now what we are seeing, of course, is even worse than before. It's getting, you know, to a situation where it's even more devastating than the terrible human suffering that is happening in Gaza and other places. We are keeping hope in the efforts of our brothers in Saudi Arabia and the US efforts of mediations, although they haven't accomplished what all of us are hoping for, which is, you know, an end to this conflict. We all share the burden and the responsibility of not acting towards the crisis that is one of the worst we have seen in recent times.
Raffini: You and I first got to know each other during the evacuation of Kabul, where the Qatari government was incredibly helpful in helping us get Americans out as well as Afghans who needed to get to the airport who'd helped Americans. What is your assessment now of the Taliban government, of these new regulations they're putting in not even allowing women's voices to be heard on the airwaves? What should be done diplomatically? Is it more advantageous not to engage with a government that does these things? Or is it self defeating not to engage with the government because there's no way of helping the population that is suffering starvation and human rights abuses?
Ansari: You know, Christina, I think that the whole world has been dealing with Afghanistan all throughout its history in one of two ways, either abandonment or war. And both have failed miserably throughout the different invasions, wars, and abandonment that went throughout the years. And sadly, while we all acknowledge that the abandonment of Afghanistan post the Soviet withdrawal is what got us to a point in September 11 where Afghanistan became a haven for international terror, we are doing the same again now. The war effort did not reduce stability in Afghanistan. It did not produce a liberal democracy, did not produce a change of culture or attitudes within the country. It ended basically where it started, with Taliban in the ruling chair in Afghanistan, and this is a reality we have to live with. Now we have two choices here, or three choices. Either we wage war again, and we know what will happen. We isolate Afghanistan, and we know what will happen. Or we start finding creative ways of engaging the Taliban government. Now we in Qatar have decided from day one that the only way forward is to draw a road map for the Afghans to recognition, however difficult, however near impossible that road map might be, but put the stick with the carrot in front of the Afghan government, interim government, and tell them, this is how you get back on the good graces of the international community. This is how you allow young people to enjoy the benefits of membership within the international community, and this is what you need to change. And this is what we tell them. We are very frank. We're very open in our dealings with the Afghan government. It's not a secret now anymore that our prime minister has called upon the leader of Taliban in Kandahar, met with him, discussed with him human rights issues, discussed with him the future of Afghanistan and what can be done. But we shouldn't expect the Afghan side to simply concede to everything we are asking them to do just because we wish it to be. There should be a dialogue. In that dialogue, we should acknowledge that they have fought a twenty year war, and at least in their minds, they came out victorious. That should be the narrative that we understand is taking place when we are talking to them. It doesn't mean that we should stop talking about the human rights issues. It doesn't mean that we should neglect the rights of Afghan women, girls, and men and boys. It doesn't mean that we should be complacent to whatever is happening in Afghanistan, but it means that we have to engage. The only sufferers of disengagement are the Afghan people. When natural crisis hits Afghanistan, it doesn't hit the Taliban. It hits the Afghan people. When there is hunger, when there is disease, when there is lack of nutrition, it doesn't affect the children of the Taliban. It affects the children of Afghanistan as a whole, including those that are not happy with the Taliban. There are things that are happening in Afghanistan of positive nature. We need to capitalize on these things, elements of security. I met a certain Afghan dissident who had no love for the Taliban, but said, you know what? This is the first time women can travel city to city in Afghanistan in relative safety. So that's one thing. The fact that they are addressing the ISIS-K threat is another thing we need to capitalize on. The fact that there is relative stability in Afghanistan for the first time in so many decades is something to build upon. And we need to find ways of creating many successes for human rights, for the people of Afghanistan, like, you know, we are trying to do right now with engaging on humanitarian aid, engaging on bringing women back into working for NGOs, reintroducing international NGOs into Afghanistan, supporting education for girls, even if it's primary education. All these things are things that can be done right now and are being done. We need to prepare ourselves for the next generation of Afghan bureaucrats and Afghan rulers. We have a good experience here in Doha where one of our NGOs engaged with the interim government to train Afghan bureaucrats on international human rights, on engaging with the international community, on international diplomacy, in order to work with these new generations, to work with the generation that doesn't have only war as a point of reference. Only conflict is a point of reference. But the prospect of hope in the future, dreams about how to rule their own country, and that will bring about change at the end.
Dearlove: But one of the big problems at the moment is the massive migration out of Afghanistan, which it must be affecting you. I mean, it must be affecting the whole of the Middle East. It's certainly affecting Europe. And, really, is there any way that that can be stemmed? Because if you're right about generational change, that they're actually losing a generation of Afghans who don't want to be in Afghanistan because it's so dire and so difficult at the moment. I mean, I'm encouraged by what you're saying. And, obviously, the future of Afghanistan lies in Afghanistan, not in Afghans going off to other countries. But it seems to me that's an almost insoluble problem at the moment.
Ansari: As you rightly said, Sir Richard, I think not only Afghanistan, a lot of places around the world, a lot of conflict zones are increasing the brain drain, increasing the problem of cross border migration that is hurting economies all around the world, including in Europe and the West. And obviously the migration coming out of Afghanistan is hurting the prospects of the country itself, but there needs to be something in Afghanistan from the Afghans to keep being there. And that's, I think, the main problem. If they are facing famine, if they are facing disease, if they are being isolated from the international community, they don't have flights coming in and out of Afghanistan. Obviously, this encourages the youth, this encourages anybody who's dreaming of a better life to leave Afghanistan. We need to create a situation in Afghanistan. We need to create the ability for people who want to stay and fight for their country in the positive sense, in the civilian sense, in the civic sense, to stay there. And that only happens if we engage and we start providing incremental steps that would make Afghanistan again a vibrant society. I'm quite sure that a lot of the people of Afghanistan who have fled war and conflict throughout the years would love to be back in their country, would love to be back to their hometowns, would love to be in their country.
UKRAINE AND LIBYA
Raffini: Unfortunately, at the moment, so many different conflicts, many of which Qatar is involved in trying to mediate, and the other one that comes to top of mind is Ukraine. What is your involvement in the conflict in Ukraine in trying to mediate a peace process there? And what is your take on whether or not there is this rush to try to get a negotiation before the Trump administration comes in and takes over?
Ansari: I can tell you one thing, which is from day one, we've said that weaponizing this conflict is not going to be a useful thing. There were reports a while back that Qatar was reselling weapons or providing weapons one way or the other to the Ukrainians. I made a very clear statement saying that this is not Qatar's prerogative. Qatar doesn't help send weapons to conflict zones. It's not something that we do, we never did it, and we will never do it because of our policy when it comes to these things. We've worked since day one on finding avenues of dialogue between Russia and Ukraine. The first thing that the prime minister told me is, Majed, listen, let's write a statement and make that statement balanced because I am going to visit the Russians and see if we can mediate to stop the conflict. And this was days, hours actually, after the invasion. So we were involved from day one. The prime minister then, of course deputy prime minister of foreign affairs, went and met with minister Lavrov, offered that Qatar can mediate. And we started talking and we continued talking. And every time they told us, no, thank you, we went back again, and we were part of the grain deal. And then we found a very important caveat just before His Excellency went to Kyiv, which is that we got a request from the Ukrainian side to reunite children affected by the war with their families, as a lot of them were lost in the process, especially in Eastern Ukraine. We started doing that. We started mediating between both sides. I was personally in Ukraine with the prime minister when we started discussing that. And now we've reunited around 34 children and individuals with their families, including people of special needs that were united with their families, including four Russian children that were united with their families in Russia. And we appreciate both sides working with us on this. We are in talks for other types of mediation. We've just started working on the POW piece. The reality which we've always advocated for from day one is that this conflict will end on a negotiating table. It will not end in the battlefield. Not one country will, you know, abolish the whole country from existence or bomb the hell out of the other country. That doesn't happen in history. So at one point, we have to sit down on a table and decide how to get guarantees for both sides that would end this conflict. Now, that said, our position on the invasion of Ukraine was very clear. We are a small country in a very turbulent neighborhood surrounded by bigger players in the region. It is never in our interest to support any idea or even to stay silent about any attack by big or small or by big or medium for that matter. This is not how international law works, it's not how the international community works, and this is not how the post Second World War international system was created to represent. And our position on this is very clear from day one, that we support the sovereignty of Ukraine, but we are willing to do whatever is possible to bring an end to this crisis.
Dearlove: Can I just ask you about one more country? We seem to be doing a tour of violent conflicts.
Raffini: I think that's what happens when you get an official, a journalist, and a spymaster together. But you know?
Dearlove: The question is, where are we in Libya now? Because that's another country in which Qatar has been sort of — I wouldn't say heavily involved, but you've certainly been quite closely involved politically in Libya. And it's hard to understand exactly. It looks to me we've almost got a permanent division of the country between two governments.
Ansari: If you take the map of the Arab world, I'm sure, secretary, you have beautiful maps in your office, and you just cross out the fragile and failed states in the region, you'll end up with pockets of stability rather than pockets of conflict. And that applies, of course, to Libya. Libya hasn't been stable for so many years now. The situation is actually becoming even more fragmented as we speak. We have been always supportive of the central government in Tripoli. We have been working to see how we can work with our regional partners to bring about some agreements over there. Sadly, the situation is stagnant in Libya. We are not seeing any real positive change. And I think it's the fact that now you have so many militias, so many groups that have their own specific interests, whether they be economic, political, or tribal, even exacerbates the crisis evermore. And sadly, this is happening in a prosperous country, a country that, just like any other country in the Gulf, for example, in the Arabian Gulf, can be an oil producing, prosperous country that can provide for its people. But because of foreign conflict, what we are seeing right now, of course, is an impoverished people. We're seeing a lack of even basic services. And we are hopeful that if we can bring about at least an agreement for elections and forming a government in Libya, we can start the process where we can see the reunification of the country take place. But sadly, so many moving parts on the ground, so many elements on the ground that are only producing more fragmentation and more difficulties. And I have to say here that in a lot of these conflicts, the main problem, the main reason why we don't have agreement, doesn't reside in the same areas as the conflict is happening. The incursions, the political incursions of players, regional or international, for very short sighted interest based positions on this side or the other side, certainly does not help in bringing about peace. If we can get one voice from the international community to say to the Libyan people, you have to come together, you have to form a unity government, and you have to lead your country out of this. Unless we have that, we're going to end up with every faction depending on its patron, whether that patron be a regional player or international player, and continuing with this for the foreseeable future.
Raffini: Doctor Majed, before I let you go, why do this? Why does Qatar get involved in these conflicts? As you said, you're a small country, you're a prosperous country. I know you've told me before it's in your DNA and it's in your constitution. There has to be something that Qatar feels like they're getting out of this, given the amount of resources and energy and just exhaustion that you are putting into trying to mediate all these different conflicts. Why do this?
Ansari: It's because, you know, Christina, I have five beautiful daughters, the youngest of which is seven years old. I want these five daughters to live in a world of peace. I want them to be able to live without any fear for their future. I want them to watch news that doesn't include death and destruction every moment. And this is what everybody in Qatar wants. And I can tell you that when it comes to our leadership, there are so many points in time where a simple decision could have been taken to just abandon the mediation process, abandon any dialogue or developmental project that we had for political reasons, and we would have been justified to do so. We've been attacked for mediating between Taliban and the United States, attacked for mediating between Venezuela and the United States, between Iran and the West, between Hamas and Israel, for getting hostages out in Syria, getting hostages out in Afghanistan, even between Russia and Ukraine. Each side has been attacking us at one point in time. And we could have easily been one of these very quiet countries that enjoy prosperity. But first of all, that would be irresponsible, even when thinking of our own children, our own people. And secondly, we are too small not to be affected by conflict. Qatar has a population of 3,000,000, which is comparable to a mid sized state in the United States. And there is a dividend to be paid to the international community, but the full sense of stability and security that we enjoy can only be prolonged by maintaining that peace and security, not in our region, not in our neighborhood only, but in the world as a whole. If we want our children, again, if I want my children to enjoy the life that I'm enjoying right now in this peace and prosperity. And to be honest, if I want the children of my Palestinian brothers, of my friends in the United States, of my friends in Europe, if I want to see you, Christina, every year in UNGA and wherever it is without fearing for our lives, the only way forward is for all of us, not only Qatar, to do something for peace seriously and to take the brave decision to go against your own selfish interest in order to produce peace. It is in our DNA. It is in our constitution. But it's also the reality of the situation that if we wanted to keep enjoying what we are enjoying right now, we have to do the legwork.
Raffini: Doctor Ansari, shukran, thank you so much for being with us. Fascinating discussion.
Ansari: Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
OUTRO
Raffini: Thanks for listening to One Decision. If you enjoyed this conversation, check out a previous episode with Sir Richard Dearlove and former CIA Director David Petraeus, the four star general who led the US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. If I brush up on my Russian and get a radio and go stand where I was in Poland, I can literally just listen to the Russian military's communications?
Petraeus: Poland might be a bit longer, but certainly if you're, say, in Kyiv in your apartment and you have a police scanner, you could pick up what the Russians were saying.
Raffini: To unlock more exclusive content, get timely updates on crucial global events, and listen in on meaningful conversations with thought leaders, be sure to check out onedecision.com. I'm Christina Raffini. Thanks for listening.
