Qatar has apparently been on Donald Trump’s mind quite a bit lately. A couple of weeks ago, for example, the president told reports, “A lot of people don’t understand that about Qatar, but Qatar’s been a great ally,” adding that Qatar’s been “a very great ally.”
A day later, Trump complained again that “a lot of people don’t know” just how great an ally Qatar has been to the U.S. A week after that, Qatar got a presidential shout-out during his address to the United Nations. And then again during a White House press conference. And then again in the Republican’s remarks to U.S. generals and admirals.
In his first term, Trump slammed Qatar as a country that he said had been a “funder of terrorism at a very high level.” His perspective on the Middle Eastern country has apparently evolved quite a bit over eight years.
But the president’s shift has gone well beyond rhetorical praise. Politico reported:
The White House published an executive order on Wednesday vowing to defend Qatar in the event of an attack from another country, a remarkable security guarantee for a single country akin to NATO’s Article 5. The order, which President Donald Trump signed Monday, states that the White House will now consider ‘any armed attack’ on Qatar ‘as a threat to the peace and security of the United States.’
Trump’s new executive order added that the U.S. was prepared to take “all lawful and appropriate measures — including diplomatic, economic and, if necessary, military — to defend the interests of the United States and the State of Qatar.”
Part of what makes the NATO charter so important is the security guarantee: An attack against any member nation is seen as an attack on every member nation.
This week, Trump decided to extend a similar guarantee to Qatar — which is not a member of NATO.
Politico’s report added, “The unilateral creation of any Article 5-like security guarantees by a president — under the Constitution, treaties must be ratified by the Senate— is highly unusual.” That’s true, though it also understates matters. CNN’s Aaron Blake wrote a good analysis on this:
The Constitution explicitly gives the power over treaties to the Senate, and here’s the president bypassing Congress over something as serious as potentially committing the US military to war. Trump has bypassed Congress on plenty of things that are normally under its purview, mostly notably the tariffs that are currently being decided by the Supreme Court. And he’s mostly been successful thanks to congressional Republicans’ acquiescence. They often don’t want to challenge him. But yet again, Trump is pushing the envelope.
Yes, and he’s doing so in support of a country that just happens to have given him a free luxury jet.
It’s worth emphasizing that Trump’s executive order is not legally binding. Unlike the U.S.’ commitment to NATO, which has been ratified by lawmakers, Trump’s presidential successor would be free to ignore his vow of protection for Qatar.
But in the meantime, this seems like the sort of thing the GOP-led Congress, which Trump has treated like a doormat for nearly nine months, might at least try to take an interest in.
