Despite being struck by both Iranian and Israeli attacks in 2025, Doha not only sustained its mediation efforts but enhanced its centrality in regional diplomacy and U.S.–Middle East negotiations
Last update: 2025-12-05 09:09:30
2025 is the year that brought home to Qatar the risks of blowback from the mediation in regional flashpoints that has defined the state’s foreign policy for the past two decades. On June 23, Iranian officials responded to the Trump administration’s decision to join Israel’s 12-Day War and bomb three nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan with a retaliatory missile strike against the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, home to the forward headquarters of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). Debris from the 14 missiles intercepted by Qatari air defenses fell over Doha as a Gulf capital came under direct Iranian attack for the first time. Eleven weeks later, an Israeli airstrike targeted a Hamas delegation which had gathered in Doha to assess a proposal from the Trump administration for a ceasefire in Gaza. Unlike the Iranian strike in June, which hit a military facility with advanced notice to minimize casualties, the Israeli attack on September 9 struck without warning a compound in a residential district on a busy afternoon, killing a Qatar member of the internal security force.
U.S.–Qatar Mediation Partnership
While many observers assumed that the Israeli strike on Doha sounded the death-knell for the ceasefire negotiations, and Qatar’s role as an intermediary, the shock of the attack (and its brazenness) galvanized the White House into taking a more assertive role in the process. President Trump and senior figures in his administration expressed their anger at being blindsided by the Israeli decision to target the Hamas leadership (especially as they were considering a proposal backed by Trump himself) and the strike appears to have crystalized concerns in the White House at the seeming lack of constraints on Israeli actions. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East advisor in his first administration, returned to the fray to take center-stage in a renewed diplomatic initiative led by the U.S. Twenty days later, Trump unveiled his 20-point peace plan which ultimately led to the ceasefire in Gaza which took effect on October 10 and has remained in force, albeit on very fragile terms.
Direct U.S. engagement was critical to securing Israeli buy-in to the October ceasefire while Qatari officials were instrumental in ensuring Hamas commitment to the deal. This illustrated the close working relationship that has defined the U.S.-Qatar relationship in recent years, exemplified by the mediatory role Qatar played in U.S. engagement with the Taliban during Trump’s first term and the assistance Qatar provided to the Biden administration during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Kabul in 2021. At every stage in the protracted, on-off talks for a ceasefire during the two-year war in Gaza, Qatari officials would explore points of concession for Hamas to make while U.S. officials did the same with Israel. This approach was visibly underscored during the intense negotiations for the January 2025 ceasefire as Qatari officials worked with trusted counterparts from both the outgoing (Biden) and incoming (Trump) administrations as well as Egyptian officials, and the Qatari Prime Minister acted as a coordinator through whom all parties’ proposals and responses flowed.
Drivers of Qatar’s Mediation Power
Several reasons account for the broadly successful Qatari role in mediation in Gaza. One is that Qatari officials are trusted by the adversarial parties to perform the role of intermediary, whether that consisted of passing messages and maintaining indirect channels of communication (a form of ‘facilitation’) or by directly engaging as a mediator. Qatari mediators emphasize that they engage at the request of the parties and this has been the case in both the U.S.-Taliban and Israel-Hamas rounds of dialogue. In the Gaza case, Qatar had developed pragmatic relationships with Hamas officials in Doha, who had been based there (with tacit U.S. acquiescence) since 2012, and with Israeli officials, with whom Qatar had coordinated flows of humanitarian and financial assistance to Gaza since 2017. It is this acceptance as a third-party intermediary that has enabled Qatar to play a distinctive role in regional diplomacy, just as Oman has done in respect of the U.S. and Iran for many years.
A further reason for Qatar’s ability to engage productively in mediation is the buildout of capacity within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs over the past decade, with the establishment of special envoys for conflict resolution and Gaza and dedicated mediation support teams. These posts, together with the work of officials such as Minister of State Mohammed Al Khulaifi and Majed Al Ansari, senior advisor to foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani (who has also served as Prime Minister of Qatar since March 2023) have added institutional depth to the Qatari decision-making apparatus. Moreover, the delivery of tangible outcomes, such as the February 2020 Doha Agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban and the January and October 2025 Gaza ceasefires has strengthened Qatar’s credibility as an intermediary and mediator able to put in the hard work and produce results.
Tested by Crisis
Above all, the durability of Qatari-U.S. ties, which ironically have been stress-tested in the opening months of each of the two Trump presidencies, meant that the White House recognized that the Israeli strike on September 9 threatened U.S. interests in the Middle East. Both in June 2017, when Trump initially backed Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in their blockade of Qatar, and in the summer of 2025, when Doha came under missile attack from a U.S. adversary and key ally, respectively, the tenets of Qatar’s security and defense posture were questioned, but on each occasion policymakers in Doha responded by drawing closer to the U.S. on every level – political, diplomatic, economic, and military. In-between, the wide-ranging support Qatar provided the Biden administration during the pullout from Kabul in August 2021 was recognized by the naming of Qatar as a protecting power for the U.S. in Afghanistan in November and the designation of Major Non-NATO Ally status in 2022.
The Sharm el-Sheikh summit in October 2025 provided evidence of Qatar’s centrality to regional mediation and to the exceptionally close ties that bind Qatar and the U.S. Preparations for the summit had been marred by the death of three Qatari officials (from the Emiri diwan) in a car crash in Egypt which increased still further the human toll Qatar has suffered in recent months from its mediatory efforts. Once the summit was underway, Trump was effusive in his praise of the Qatari leadership, and Qatar joined the U.S., Egypt, and Turkey as signatory guarantors of the ceasefire agreement. While guarantor status testifies to Qatar’s status as a diplomatic heavyweight in the region, it also brings challenges if (or when) the ceasefire breaks down or the Trump peace plan fails to make headway. Management of these challenges, and holding Hamas and Israel accountable to the terms of the ceasefire, may leave Qatar and the other signatories vulnerable to political blowback, especially should Trump lose interest in the process and shift his attention onto other issues.
After Trump made an extravagant three-country, four-day visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE in May 2025, expectations were high across the Gulf that the president had seen for himself the opportunities presented by a stable and prosperous region. Instead, within four weeks, Israel had attacked Iran and Iran had retaliated against Qatar, and the Iranian and Israeli strikes on Doha crossed flashing red lines in Gulf states’ security assessments. The executive order signed by Trump on September 29 extending security guarantees to Qatar is a significant response, as were the assurances offered to Saudi Arabia during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the White House on November 18. And yet, for Qatar and all the Gulf States, the challenge will be to keep Trump focused on the benefits that stability can bring and to ensure he does not get distracted or pulled into other regional conflicts.