"It’s unclear what “problems” he’s talking about and even less clear why this should matter to the Qataris, given that they’re restoring relations with the two largest members of the quartet and Bahrain is, well, Bahrain."
As a Bahraini, that uhhh hurt. It is true of course, but still, ouch.
Hahahaha no, I mean it's absolutely true. I'm surprised Zayani is kicking up a fuss online over these vague and unspecified issues. Usually, Bahrain just follows Saudi Arabia's lead on foreign policy, or otherwise acts as Saudi's lab (see normalization with Israel), so this act of pettiness away from the Saudi line is rather surprising.
I think the fact that the UAE is lagging behind the others gives Bahrain some room to do the same. And I'm sure they had a conversation with the Saudis before airing their vague grievances. The Saudis are reconciling with Qatar to curry some favor with the Biden administration, not out of any sense that it's what they want to do. I'm sure they don't mind some continued Gulf discord.
"It’s unclear what “problems” he’s talking about and even less clear why this should matter to the Qataris, given that they’re restoring relations with the two largest members of the quartet and Bahrain is, well, Bahrain."
As a Bahraini, that uhhh hurt. It is true of course, but still, ouch.
Sorry, that was probably unnecessarily blunt.
Hahahaha no, I mean it's absolutely true. I'm surprised Zayani is kicking up a fuss online over these vague and unspecified issues. Usually, Bahrain just follows Saudi Arabia's lead on foreign policy, or otherwise acts as Saudi's lab (see normalization with Israel), so this act of pettiness away from the Saudi line is rather surprising.
I think the fact that the UAE is lagging behind the others gives Bahrain some room to do the same. And I'm sure they had a conversation with the Saudis before airing their vague grievances. The Saudis are reconciling with Qatar to curry some favor with the Biden administration, not out of any sense that it's what they want to do. I'm sure they don't mind some continued Gulf discord.