This file photo shows sun reflects off the glass and steel buildings on the Doha skyline. From its startling winning bid to host the 2022 football World Cup and mediating roles in Middle East and African conflicts to leading Arab efforts to isolate Syria, tiny Qatar is aspiring to an ambitious role: global powerbroker (Reuters photo)

Led by a ruling family that does not shy away from taking controversial positions on world affairs, the Gulf Arab state was a major supporter of Libya’s NATO-backed rebels, providing arms and troops and ensuring the lasting gratitude of Libyans.

In 2008, Emir Sheikh Hamad Ben Khalifa Al Thani helped cajole Lebanese leaders to a political agreement, succeeding where the Arab League, the United Nations, France and others had failed.

And in Sudan, Qatar mediated the ceasefire agreement signed in Doha between Khartoum and Darfur rebels in 2010.

The impetus behind the country’s pursuit of the limelight in the past decade is a wish to differentiate itself from regional neighbours, specifically Saudi Arabia, with whom Qatar has had sporadically acrimonious relations for decades.

“One of the key goals of Qatari foreign policy is to insert itself into key conflicts whereby Qatar becomes the crucial interlocutor between Western states and a range of ‘problematic’ Muslim actors,” said David Roberts, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), based in Doha.

A close ally of Washington and home to the largest US air base in the Middle East, Qatar has often launched political initiatives that corresponded with Western interests, and it had formal ties with Israel until its 2009 war with the Palestinian Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip.

But Qatar has not hesitated in recent years to engage America’s foes Iran and Hamas in pursuit of political leverage.

Just before the Taliban blew up Afghanistan’s ancient Buddha statues in Bamiyan in 2001, Qatar sent a delegation urging them to desist. And until recently it maintained good ties with Syrian President Bashar Assad, as well as with the current opposition.

That boldness and ability to engage almost everyone from the United States to Hizbollah has enabled Qatar, a tiny peninsula slightly smaller than Connecticut, to quietly morph into a surprisingly agile diplomatic power centre.

“Qatar has been able to do this because they’ve always made it a priority to maintain good relations with everybody,” said one Doha-based political analyst, declining to be identified.

“They sustained relations with Iran during the (1980-88) Iran-Iraq war and played a mediating role throughout. During the Gulf war, they maintained contacts with Saddam Hussein until the last minute,” he added.

With Egypt, the region’s traditional mediator, in disarray and others holding back, analysts say the timing is right for Qatar, which gained independence from Britain only in 1971.

The United States and Afghanistan are holding talks to seal an agreement for Taliban insurgents to open a political office in Qatar, and negotiating the possible transfer to the Gulf state of five former senior Taliban officials who have been held for years at Guantanamo Bay military prison.

Such steps would mark a milestone for the administration of US President Barack Obama, which is working on making Afghanistan secure ahead of its planned extrication from a long and costly war.

Analysts say rivalry with Saudi Arabia has been an important element of Qatari foreign policy over the past decade.

Open debates on the Doha-based and -financed Al Jazeera satellite channel that included criticism of Riyadh have not helped, though relations have warmed recently.

Being the locus of a potential resolution to the Afghan war could immeasurably boost Qatar’s status, Roberts said.

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