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Russia, US Wage Early Silent Battle over Syria Presidential Elections

Bashar Assad and his wife Asma at a polling station in Damascus on July 19. (AFP)
Bashar Assad and his wife Asma at a polling station in Damascus on July 19. (AFP)
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Russia, US Wage Early Silent Battle over Syria Presidential Elections

Bashar Assad and his wife Asma at a polling station in Damascus on July 19. (AFP)
Bashar Assad and his wife Asma at a polling station in Damascus on July 19. (AFP)

The upcoming Syrian presidential elections will be the scene of an “early silent battle” between Russia and its allies on the one side and the United States and its partners on the other. The elections will be the first to be held after Russia cemented its military presence in the war-torn country and during the first months of Joe Biden’s term as US president. They will also be held amid the significant field developments and the drawing of borders of the three “areas of influence” in Syria. Significantly, they are also being held amid a crippling economic crisis, western economic sanctions and Syria’s political and diplomatic isolation.

Clear message
Moscow, along with Damascus and Tehran, wants to hold the elections according to the current 2012 constitution and without any reforms that would be introduced in line with UN Security Council resolution 2254. Russia sees the elections as an opportunity to “open a new chapter” with regional and international forces and make them contend with the status quo and the “legitimate government”.

The Syrian Constitutional Committee has held four rounds of talks in Geneva and is set to meet again in late January to discuss the constitution. Other rounds had tackled “national principles”. Damascus has, however, sent a clear message that constitutional reform will not take place before the presidential elections, which are scheduled for mid-2021. Moscow has also backed it with a clearer message that “there is no timeframe” for constitutional reform and that the “elections are a sovereign Syrian affair.”

This means that the no constitutional reform will take place before the end of Bashar Assad’s term in mid-July. The elections will therefore, go ahead according to the 2012 constitution that grants wide privileges to the president, effectively paving the way for Assad’s third term in office.

The constitution also stipulates that any presidential candidate should have resided in Syria for ten consecutive years before running and they should garner the approval of 35 lawmakers.

The National Progressive Front, which includes a coalition of parties led by the ruling Baath, had won 183 out of the 250-seat parliament in the July elections earlier this year, meaning it controls who will run for president.

For Damascus, Moscow and Tehran, constitutional reform will be addressed after 2021, or rather when Assad wins a new seven-year term in office. He is expected to implement reform during the next parliamentary elections, set for 2024, unless he decides to hold them earlier.

A point of contention between Moscow and Damascus is the former’s desire for more candidates to run in the elections. Russia has been gradually testing the waters with various opposition candidates to that end. However, it will face obstacles in this regard, including the reluctance of central figures to run in a “sham election”. Other obstacles are the stipulation that the candidate should have lived in Syria for ten years and the support of 35 MPs.

Moscow’s intentions were clear when a Russian reporter asked Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during his visit to Damascus in September if the ten-year condition would be annulled. Damascus, however, stood firm. Late Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said at the time: “The presidential elections will be held on time. As for annulling the ten-year residency condition, that is for the higher electoral commission. In principle, anyone who meets the conditions is eligible to run in the elections.”

Conditions to run in elections are, however, a constitutional affair, not one for the higher electoral commission

Tehran has backed Moallem’s statements. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had in recent days stated that the “Syrian government is legitimate and very cooperative in the political process and constitutional reform.” Moscow, meanwhile, is still searching for the mechanisms to transform the upcoming elections into the beginning of a new chapter of how the West and region deal with Damascus. It is hoping that the new phase would “end Syria’s isolation and pave the way for reconstruction and normalization of political and diplomatic relations.” Key to this is amending the 2012 constitution to “add color” to the elections.

Calm consultations
Western countries, meanwhile, are holding calm consultations away from the media to take a united stand on how to deal with the elections. The US wants to “ignore” the polls as it did the parliamentary ones when it stated that it “will not recognize any elections that are not held according to resolution 2254.” The resolution calls for holding elections under the supervision of the UN and participation of Syrians, including those displaced abroad. Washington’s allies are meanwhile divided, with some wanting to ignore the polls, others proposing supporting an opposition candidate and others suggesting setting clear UN-approved standards to recognize any election.

Some countries have tried to persuade UN envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, to declare a position on the elections. He said that the elections are beyond his jurisdiction that are outlined in resolution 2254. He instead appointed an “elections advisor”, prompting a proposal for the declaration of standards and principles so that the elections can be recognized. The UN will be tasked with announcing them.

France had drafted a “non-paper” that sets the special standards of the polls. The document, a copy of which was obtained by Asharq Al-Awsat, said: “Should the elections be free, transparent and neutral, and should they be held in a safe environment whereby all segments of Syrian society, including refugees abroad, take part without impediment, then the upcoming polls can effectively and truly cement stable legitimate institutions in the country.” These institutions are an “integral part of the broader political process in line with resolution 2254.” The elections can also be part of the permanent settlement for the conflict.

The omission of any of these conditions is an opportunity for the Assad regime to restore its false legitimacy in the post-conflict phase and deter refugees abroad from even thinking about returning home.

Strict conditions
The document, therefore, set strict conditions for the West to accept the elections. They are:

1- Cementing trust on the ground with the aim of preparing safe and impartial conditions during and after the elections. This will ensure that the electoral process is credible and the people’s rights are guaranteed.

2- Providing strong guarantees that refugees and the displaced will take part in the vote. Some 12 million refugees are displaced in Syria and abroad, so it is very important that they have their voice heard in the elections and that they even be allowed to run.

3- Providing the legal ground for holding electoral reform, including reforming articles 84 and 85 of the constitution and forming an independent UN-supervised panel to review electoral nominations.

4- UN supervision of the elections would provide strict impartiality in the electoral process. To that end, the organization must oversee the entire process, starting with reforming the electoral law, designating electoral roles, the voting, ballot stations and suitable electoral infrastructure.

Western countries did not recognize parliamentary elections held in Syria in 2012, 2016 and 2020 and the presidential elections in 2014. Washington is meanwhile, maintaining its sanctions according to the Caesar Act and is continuing to exert pressure to keep Damascus in political and diplomatic isolation until it begins to implement resolution 2254 and have Iran pull out its militias from Syria among other demands.

Background
The upcoming elections will be the 18th since 1932. The first elections ever held in Syria were the most diverse even though they were held under French mandate. Over 60 nominees ran for president, making them the largest field of candidates to ever run for the presidential elections in any country.

Syrian historians do not give much weight to the 1932 elections because they were held under French rule. They do however, highlight the 1955 elections that witnessed a race between Shukri al-Quwatli and Khalid al-Azm. All other elections after that were either referendums or uncontested affairs.

The diversity and competition of the 1932 race showed just how promising the nascent democracy in Syria was in the early 1930s. It showed just how much it could have prospered were it not for military coups and countercoups that began to plague the country from 1949.

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Atef Najib in Court: Reconstructing the Story of the ‘First Spark’ in Syria’s Uprising

Atef Najib at the Damascus courthouse on April 26, 2026. (Reuters)
Atef Najib at the Damascus courthouse on April 26, 2026. (Reuters)
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Atef Najib in Court: Reconstructing the Story of the ‘First Spark’ in Syria’s Uprising

Atef Najib at the Damascus courthouse on April 26, 2026. (Reuters)
Atef Najib at the Damascus courthouse on April 26, 2026. (Reuters)

The arrest of schoolchildren in the southern Syrian city of Daraa in March 2011 is widely regarded as the spark that ignited the Syrian uprising. What began as a local incident evolved into nationwide protests and, eventually, a devastating civil war.

Fifteen years later, the case has resurfaced as Syrian authorities pursue accountability for abuses committed under Bashar al-Assad's regime, placing former Daraa Political Security Department chief Atef Najib at the center of one of the conflict’s defining episodes.

As transitional justice efforts gather pace under President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government, the “Daraa children case” has become a key test of whether Syria’s judicial institutions can confront the legacy of arbitrary detention, systematic torture, and repression.

Asharq Al-Awsat interviewed two of the children detained at the time, now adults, whose testimonies revisit the events behind the slogan, “It’s your turn, Doctor”—a reference to Assad—that was scrawled by children on a school wall and became synonymous with the uprising’s beginning.

Fifteen years later, they said that the central question is no longer who wrote the slogan, but how it became the pretext for mass arrests and the torture of children.

Their accounts reconstruct the sequence of events while reinforcing the broader conclusion that what happened inside Syria’s security branches transformed a local incident into a turning point in the country’s history.

Naif Abazeed: Childhood in the interrogation cells

Naif Abazeed was 13 when he was arrested. His name has long been associated with writing the famous phrase, but he firmly rejects that claim.

He told Asharq Al-Awsat that the only graffiti he ever wrote was his own name and that of a friend on a wall at Daraa al-Balad Preparatory School in 2009.

He also disputed the widely circulated account placing the graffiti at Al-Arbaeen School, saying others appropriated his story while changing the location and timeline.

Abazeed said he never met Atef Najib. Instead, he identifies then-Col. Louay al-Ali as the officer who interrogated and tortured him.

While his testimony shifts attention to al-Ali’s direct role during the investigation, it does not absolve Najib. Rather, it distinguishes between the officer who conducted the interrogations and the security chief who commanded the apparatus responsible for the children’s detention.

Under international law, command responsibility extends beyond those who personally commit abuses to include superiors who knew, or should have known, about the violations and failed to prevent or punish them.

One of the children, now an adult, seen at the Al-Arbaeen School. (Getty Images)

Arrested at school

Abazeed recalled security officers arriving at his school after police had searched his home earlier that morning.

Al-Ali introduced himself as an education official investigating graffiti supposedly bearing the student’s name alongside that of a girlfriend.

Instead, the interrogation centered on the phrase, “It’s your turn, Doctor,” which had already been erased.

The boy was told he would be questioned briefly. Instead, he was taken to a Political Security Branch detention facility, where he said he was confronted with instruments of torture, beaten with cables and sticks, suspended, and forced into the “tire” stress position.

“I told them I had written nothing except my name in 2009,” he said. “The officer insisted I had written something else.”

Unable to withstand the abuse, Abazeed said he eventually confessed to something he had not done. He added that he only learned after his release that another student had actually written the phrase.

He also recounted being handed paper and ordered to write down everything that had appeared on the school walls. When the phrase was missing, the interrogator allegedly dictated it word by word while continuing to beat him until he repeated it in full. Only then did he understand that “Doctor” referred to President Bashar al-Assad.

The interrogation did not end there. Abazeed revealed that he was pressured to identify accomplices and, under torture, named classmates and neighbors, drawing more children into the investigation.

Demonstrators hold posters on the day Atef Najib, a brigadier general and former head of the Political Security Department in Daraa during Syria's ousted President Bashar al-Assad's rule, who is accused of committing war crimes, attends a trial session at the Palace of Justice, in Damascus, Syria, April 26, 2026. (Reuters)

Another victim’s testimony

Samer Ali al-Sayasneh, another child detained in 2011 after being accused of burning a police kiosk near Al-Arbaeen School, has also testified against Najib in court.

He holds Najib fully responsible for the escalation in Daraa, from arbitrary arrests to orders that led to the deadly shootings at Omari Mosque and a nearby gas station.

According to al-Sayasneh, no security branch would have acted without Najib’s authorization, making any attempt to exonerate him implausible.

The legal case

Lawyer Noha al-Masri told Asharq Al-Awsat that prosecutors are relying primarily on Syrian law, including Law No. 16 of 2022, provisions of the Syrian Penal Code, and Legislative Decree No. 20 of 2013.

She said the abuses committed in Daraa in March 2011 could also meet the international definition of crimes against humanity because they formed part of a widespread and systematic attack against civilians.

Al-Masri stressed that criminal responsibility extends beyond direct perpetrators to those who planned, ordered, supervised, or knowingly allowed the abuses to occur, reflecting the established principle of command responsibility under international humanitarian law.

She added that victims’ testimony, videos, medical reports, and official documents together could provide the foundation for one of the most significant trials in modern Syrian history - one likely to shape future accountability cases.

Syrian law also allows victims to seek compensation for the physical, psychological, material, and moral harm they suffered.

Strengthening the evidentiary record, she underlined, depends on corroborating witness testimony with videos, official documents, and medical and human rights reports.

Features

Israel Struck an Iranian Steel Facility. Was it a Valid Military Target?

This video grab taken on April 3, 2026, from undated UGC images shared on social media on April 1, 2026, shows thick plumes of smoke rising following airstrikes in Baharestan, in Iran's central Isfahan province. (Photo by various sources / AFP)
This video grab taken on April 3, 2026, from undated UGC images shared on social media on April 1, 2026, shows thick plumes of smoke rising following airstrikes in Baharestan, in Iran's central Isfahan province. (Photo by various sources / AFP)
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Israel Struck an Iranian Steel Facility. Was it a Valid Military Target?

This video grab taken on April 3, 2026, from undated UGC images shared on social media on April 1, 2026, shows thick plumes of smoke rising following airstrikes in Baharestan, in Iran's central Isfahan province. (Photo by various sources / AFP)
This video grab taken on April 3, 2026, from undated UGC images shared on social media on April 1, 2026, shows thick plumes of smoke rising following airstrikes in Baharestan, in Iran's central Isfahan province. (Photo by various sources / AFP)

Washington: Yeganeh Torbati

Over the course of the Iran war, US and Israeli warplanes hit missile depots and launchers, security forces’ headquarters and air defense systems.

Yet not all of the targets during the six-week campaign were traditional military sites.

On March 27, and again a few days later, Israeli airstrikes pounded a vast steel complex just outside Isfahan called Mobarakeh Steel, and another one in the southwest of the country.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that his country’s strikes had slashed Iran’s steel production capacity and eliminated revenue for the powerful Revolutionary Guards, whose repression underpins the Iranian government.

Companies like Mobarakeh illustrate the complexities inherent to Iran’s economy. While Iran’s clerical leadership and security forces are deeply enmeshed in the country’s most profitable and important businesses, those same companies are vital to the livelihoods of millions of ordinary Iranians, regardless of whether they have deep ideological allegiance to the government.

The attacks shut down major parts of the Isfahan plant for weeks, idling over 20,000 workers and choking off the supply of steel to domestic manufacturers. “I felt like my own home had been destroyed,” said Mostafa, a former employee, who asked to speak on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution by the government.

The United States and Iran have lurched between peace talks and exchanges of fire in recent weeks. Their negotiations were expected to cover the economic benefits Iran might receive in return for long-term limits on its nuclear program.

The interim ceasefire agreement, signed last month, could result in as much as $300 billion for Iran’s reconstruction and economic development. But that now seems a distant prospect, after Trump said this week that he believed the temporary truce was “over.”

If any investment does flow to Iran, companies like Mobarakeh will undoubtedly come into focus because of their importance to Iran’s economy, as well as their affiliation with Iran’s most powerful security forces.

Trump has frequently threatened to attack Iranian infrastructure, and if war restarts, there will be scrutiny over any such strikes.

On Thursday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps accused the United States of striking a railway bridge that connected the country with Turkmenistan.

A spokesman for US Central Command confirmed that the United States struck the railway bridge, describing it as military logistics infrastructure that enabled a flow of weapons and other military supplies to key areas.

Mobarakeh has provided revenue to an investment fund belonging to a state-run militia, the Basij, which answers to the Guards, according to the US Treasury.

A 2021 report by Iran’s Parliament identified the investment fund as a major shareholder of Mobarakeh.

Recent financial statements from Mobarakeh show that its shareholders include an investment fund ultimately controlled by Iran’s supreme leader.

Although the statements do not show a link to the Guards, they often obscure their ownership through proxy investors.

In justifying the strikes on steel facilities, Netanyahu said they would deprive the regime “of both financial resources and the ability to produce many weapons.”

Mobarakeh executives did not respond to a request for comment, and it is unclear if the steel produced at Mobarakeh was used in making Iran’s weapon systems.

“Mobarakeh Steel products might not be directly used in missile production, but the company is most probably engaged in research and development of modern high-strength steel alloys for future large-scale production,” said Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow with the Washington Institute and an expert on Iranian military affairs.

He added, “Mobarakeh Steel products, though, are more likely used in producing missile transporter-launcher vehicles.”

International law prohibits strikes on industrial sites that serve civilians, unless the facility makes an effective contribution to military action and striking it confers a definite military advantage, international law experts said.

The dominant international view rejects the idea that generating revenue for military operations is enough to qualify a civilian site as a military target, said Susana SaCouto, director of the War Crimes Research Office at American University’s Washington College of Law.

Miad Maleki, a former US Treasury official, said that while he believed the complex was a legitimate target for sanctions, he doubted that it should have been hit in military strikes.

“These are the Iranian people’s assets, and it’s going to hurt the economy even way beyond the Islamic republic,” he said.

“It does employ many people and pay salaries for many people,” Maleki added. “But at the same time, it’s really just a major source of revenue for a lot of corrupt actors.”

Opaque ownership

Built by an Italian business group, Mobarakeh became operational in 1992 and was a symbol of Iran’s industrial development and rebuilding after the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.

People with ties to the Revolutionary Guards moved into leadership positions at the plant starting in the late 1990s, two former employees said, declining to be named to avoid repercussions from Iran’s government.

For instance, Mehdi Taj, a former senior Guards commander, served on the complex’s board of directors and held an executive position there in the early 2000s.

Taj is now the director of Iran’s soccer federation, which did not respond to a request for comment.

And a privatization drive carried out in the mid-2000s transferred portions of state-owned companies, like Mobarakeh, to powerful and opaque players such as the Guards and conglomerates that answer to Iran’s clerical leadership.

In 2008, a consortium led by Mehr Eghtesad Iranian Investment Company, an outfit belonging to the Basij, purchased 45% of Mobarakeh’s shares.

As of 2021, Mehr Eghtesad was one of Mobarakeh’s largest shareholders, with a nearly 14% stake, according to a parliamentary report written that year.

The Basij is one of the primary forces that the regime deploys to suppress protests, including the recent nationwide demonstrations in December and January. Those protests arose over discontent with Iran’s currency crisis and perceived economic mismanagement by the government.

Mehr Eghtesad’s owner, a bank, in 2020 merged with another Iranian bank, Bank Sepah, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Mobarakeh earned roughly $1.6 billion in net profit in 2024-2025. The US Treasury said in 2018 that the company “has provided millions of dollars” annually to Mehr Eghtesad.

“Some part of the economy is run through the government, but some larger part of the economy is run through the shadow government or Revolutionary Guards,” said Mahdi Ghodsi, an economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies.

One relatively new shareholder of Mobarakeh, according to documents filed with the Tehran Stock Exchange, is a company belonging to Astan-e Quds-e Razavi, an Iranian foundation that the United States put sanctions on in 2021 for being controlled by Iran’s former supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. The company owned 1.79% of Mobarakeh as of last year.

Other major owners include several state-owned pension funds. Iran’s pension funds have been struggling for years to make payments to retirees, and the destruction of key sectors of the economy is likely to worsen that problem.

Iranian legislators investigated possible corruption by managers at Mobarakeh in 2021 and blamed many of its issues on the flawed process of privatization, saying it was “now governed by completely opaque ownership alongside entirely state-controlled management.”

A ‘beloved’ company

Interviews with some of the people who used to work at Mobarakeh present another image of the company.

For aspiring engineers growing up in Isfahan, working at Mobarakeh was a “dream job,” said Maryam, who now lives outside Iran. She and some other former employees whom The New York Times spoke to requested that they not be fully identified, for fear of repercussions for speaking publicly.

Some said they felt they were at a prestigious, state-of-the-art company that was contributing to the country and cared about their well-being.

“Even before I was born, my father was working in steel,” said Maziyar Shokrani, who, like his father, worked at Mobarakeh.

Shokrani began working there as a lawyer in the mid-2000s, taking a bus each day to the sprawling plant 40 miles outside Isfahan. “I know my entire life and existence to be from steel,” he said.

Mobarakeh also donated funds to build stadiums and educational institutions and supported poor families in the area surrounding the complex, said Mostafa, the former employee, who now lives outside Iran.

“It was beloved in that region,” Mostafa said. “Any industry that hit a snag, or any group that had a problem, they had some hope that Mobarakeh Steel would arrange for some kind of support.”

The Iranian news outlet Rouydad24 reported in early May that of 27,000 workers, just 2,000 were still working at the plant. Iranian officials have said that Mobarakeh is being rebuilt more quickly than expected, and in early June the company relaunched a furnace that had been damaged in the strikes.

In interviews, former employees had differing views about who was to blame for the strikes on Mobarakeh.

“More of the blame should be cast with the Guards, because it deliberately and consciously took the country’s economy down this path,” said Shokrani, who now lives outside Iran.

In the minds of Iranians, the United States and Israel were closely linked in their conduct of the war, said Abbas Kamranian-Marnani, a mechanical engineer who worked at Mobarakeh or its contractors for a decade and now lives in Europe. “They worked mostly toward the destruction of infrastructure and the destruction of Iran,” he said.

Kamranian-Marnani said strikes like the one on the steel plant had caused Iranians to lose hope in the idea of better relations with the United States.

A senior US military official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, said they did not know of any US role in the steel strikes.

The New York Times

Features

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa: The Emir Who Transformed Qatar

Former Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Former Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa: The Emir Who Transformed Qatar

Former Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Former Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (Asharq Al-Awsat)

With the passing of the Father Emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Qatar closes the chapter on one of the Gulf region's most significant political and development success stories of recent decades. His name became synonymous with the most profound transformation in the country's modern history, as Qatar evolved during his reign from a state with a limited international profile into an influential player in regional and global politics, economics, and media.

Sheikh Hamad is widely regarded as one of Qatar's defining leaders and the architect of its modern renaissance. Under his leadership, the country underwent sweeping economic, social, and cultural transformation. During his reign, Qatar's gross domestic product expanded more than twenty-fourfold, while GDP per capita increased nearly sixfold.

Born in Doha in 1952, Sheikh Hamad graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1971. He then joined the armed forces, rising through the military ranks before being appointed Crown Prince and Minister of Defense in 1977. On June 27, 1995, he assumed power, and in June 2013 handed authority to his son, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, in a smooth transfer of power widely regarded as one of the region's rare peaceful successions.

A Strong Economy

Sheikh Hamad's economic strategy centered on harnessing Qatar's vast natural gas wealth to build a strong and diversified economy. During his years in power, the country's GDP grew dramatically, average incomes rose sharply, and exports of liquefied natural gas ushered in a new era in Qatar's history. Following the first LNG shipment in 1996, Qatar became the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas by 2006, generating enormous revenues that financed major investments in infrastructure, education, healthcare, and public services.

Expanding Qatar's International Role

On the international stage, Qatar adopted a far more active foreign policy, positioning itself as a mediator in a number of regional and international conflicts. Among its most prominent diplomatic efforts were its role in Lebanon during the 2006 war and the country's political crisis in 2008.

Qatar also took a leading role in supporting the Palestinian cause, particularly through economic assistance to the Gaza Strip and by providing a platform for negotiations aimed at ending the conflict there. In 2012, Sheikh Hamad became the first Arab leader to visit Gaza after Hamas took control of the territory.

He also forged close strategic ties with the United States. During his reign, Al Udeid Air Base was established in 1996. Qatar financed almost the entire construction of the base, at a cost exceeding $1 billion, as part of a strategy to strengthen its defense capabilities and deepen military cooperation with the United States following the Gulf War. By 2002, it had become one of the most important US. military bases outside the United States.

Qatar also participated in the international conference supporting post-Gaddafi Libya in Paris. During Sheikh Hamad's rule, Doha became a major supporter of the Syrian cause, providing extensive political and humanitarian backing to the Syrian opposition, an approach that continued in subsequent years.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, Qatar pursued a foreign policy built on relative neutrality and open channels with opposing parties, allowing it to serve as a mediator in regional and international disputes. Over time, this approach became one of the country's most effective instruments of soft power, transforming Doha into a permanent venue for negotiations and political dialogue.

Today, the Qatari capital is widely recognized as one of the world's leading hubs for mediation and conflict resolution, a role first established under Sheikh Hamad and later expanded during the reign of Sheikh Tamim.

Soft Power

Just one year after assuming power, Sheikh Hamad launched the Al Jazeera Media Network in 1996. The network quickly became one of the Arab world's most influential media platforms, giving Qatar an outsized voice in regional political discourse. As the Arab world underwent profound political change, Al Jazeera emerged as one of Qatar's most powerful instruments of influence, elevating the country's international profile far beyond its geographic size.

The World Cup

Qatar's hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup was far more than a sporting event. It was a strategic national project and a defining milestone that reshaped the country's standing on the global stage.

By hosting football's biggest tournament, Qatar became both the first Arab nation and the first Middle Eastern country to stage the World Cup, earning unprecedented global visibility across the media, political, and economic spheres while reinforcing its image as a nation capable of organizing events of the highest international caliber.

The tournament also became one of Qatar's most effective soft power tools. Rather than relying solely on traditional forms of influence, Doha used sport to strengthen its international image, showcase its organizational capabilities, and capture the world's attention.

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani leaves behind a lasting legacy in Qatar's modern history. His name is inseparable from the country's transformation from an economy largely dependent on natural resources into a state wielding influence through a diverse set of instruments, including economic strength, global investment, media, diplomacy, and sport.

Many of the defining features of Qatar's current policies remain rooted in the foundations he laid during his years in power, making his legacy one of the Gulf region's most significant political and developmental transformations in recent decades.