This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Saturday, June 10th, 2017.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The dissociation of several Arab states with the small wealthy nation of Qatar

comes at a time when the US is seeking greater

military alliances with Saudi Arabia as it fights multiple wars. Why did this

happen and does it make a step down in America's foreign entanglements less likely.

Cato Institute Research Fellow Emma Ashford comments.

The relationship between Qatar and Saudi Arabia has been problematic for quite some time.

I actually wrote a policy analysis for Cato a couple

of years back in which I talked about Saudi and Katari involvement in the Syrian Civil War.

And actually, Saudi and Katari spending on groups that opposed one another is one of the reasons why that war got so violent.

And so there's been this rivalry for years. Basically, the Qataris have a tendency to support Islamist groups, that's political Islamist

groups, things like the Muslim Brotherhood, things like

the Hamas in the Palestinian territories and the Saudis don't like that. They do not like the Muslim brother

who do they've effectively banned them inside Saudi Arabia and they worry about

those kind of groups gaining more traction in the Gulf.

So this is very much a political disagreement based on which Saeed in regional political struggles

each country aligns with.

And yet the United States has had a relationship with Qatar with respect to military support for like two decades, at least. to some extent actually cutter's relationship with the US was

something of a Trump card for the Qataris they used to be very dependent on Saudi Arabia, followed Saudi foreign policy all the time,

but about 15-20 years ago, the Emir of Qatar at the time invited the US to set up a base there.

That base at Al-O-Dade is now the forward operating headquarters of US Central

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