Four Arab Nations Mass Military against Qatar

In an attempt to prevent the Saudi-led Arab dispute with Qatar from bursting out of control, President Donald Trump spoke from Air Force One Wednesday, July 5, with Egypt’s Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi, to urge “constructive negotiations on all parties”.
At the same time, he reiterated that they must all adhere to their commitments at the Riyadh Summit to stop terrorist financing and discredit extremist Ideology. The dispute between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain is rooted in their allegation that Qatar is financing terrorist organizations and kowtowing to Tehran.
According to DEBKA Weekly’s military and intelligence sources, Trump tackled the Egyptian president urgently after he received intelligence that Qatar’s four Arab opponents were massing military forces on the emirate’s land and sea borders. They were acting out the Saudi-Egyptian proposal that was adopted by the four foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Wednesday for responding to Qatar’s rejection of their 13-point ultimatum.
Our sources report that Egyptian and UAE warships have arrived in Bahrain, along with two Egyptian commando battalions, while the Saudi army has deployed special operatons forces with armor along the border with Qatar.
Doha fears the Saudis may launch a missile attack on the Al-Jazeera television station and destroy it. Its shutdown was one of the 13 demands leveled against Qatar. A military clash between Saudi Arabia and Qatar on the air or on ground is a very real threat, according to Intelligence sources. There is another complication: Turkey has poured troops into the tiny emirate and set up a base there.
An armed conflagration over the dispute is of great concern to the US president for four reasons:
1. A military clash between Qatar and any of its four opponents would rip up the US-Sunni Muslim alliance that Trump established at the Riyadh Summit.
2. Any military action in the Gulf would have serious fallout on the Syrian conflict and impair the prospects of a solution for ending it.
3. It would place a large question mark over the big Al-Udeid Air Base and American investments in Qatar’s energy production.
4. Qatar may turn to the United Nations as the victim of aggression. This would open the door to Russian intervention in the dispute and a foothold in the oil-rich Gulf.
Qatar is meanwhile poised to use its powerful economic resource to fight back.
On Tuesday, July 4, Doha took the energy markets by surprise by announcing an increase of LNG production to 100 million tones per year – over the next five-to-seven years. This is equal to one-third of global supplies and an unwanted addition to the current market glut, but it would confirm Qatar’s place as the world’s top gas exporter.
The state-owned Qatar Petroleum is partnered with the US Exxon Mobil oil giant to produce its LNG and export a super-light form of crude oil, which is a by-product of gas extraction. This condensate has raised Qatar’s revenues substantially and made the emirate rich – even in the face of a 70 percent fall in LNG prices and 50 percent drop in oil prices since 2014.