By the middle of March during Trump’s Operation Epic Fury, Iran was flexing its retaliatory might, and the Gulf region was shocked to see the largest natural-gas production facility in the world, Qatar’s North Field, badly damaged, with a key section forced offline and severely damaged. The Washington Post has just provided some new information which has come to light, writing that “There was an additional, hidden consequence. The strike also dashed secret efforts by Qatar to keep its gas complex, known as Ras Laffan, off Iran’s target list, according to Middle Eastern security officials and Western officials briefed on the intelligence.” This after the punishing Iranian strikes (against a nearby Arab state which hosts US forces) “destroyed sections of a plant that provides nearly a fifth of the globe’s gas supply, imperiled multibillion-dollar contracts with China and other clients, and damaged the prospects of finding an earlier end to the war by dragging Qatar, a key mediator between the United States and Iran, into the fight” – WaPo also reviewed. That ‘secret negotiations’ were being held apart from the US – or also separately from other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states is indeed significant, highlighting a theme that Tehran continues to seek to assert leverage [...]
