Press TV has conducted an interview with Entifadh Qanbar, political analyst, about the Qatari ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani officially abdicating power in favor of his son Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Entifadh Qanbar, we are looking at Qatar, in terms of the foreign policy it is said there is not going to be any major changes.

Now what I am wondering is here is a country that does not allow formation of political parties and just a night before this announcement, the emir came out extending the terms of the Advisory Shura Council which in effect indefinitely postpones elections. Yet they go around and they preach democracy such as what they are doing in Syria, kind of doesn’t go against their own internal politics, does it?

Qanbar: I advise everybody to take a look at the official website of the Qatari government and read the Qatari Constitution. It is literally a joke Constitution.

Article 64 of the Constitution up to I believe 68 or 69 talks about the emir. There is a whole section of the Constitution about the emir, the prince or the ruler and it shows you that this ruler basically has, is the only Constitution that is functioning in Qatar.

He has the authority to allocate money, he has the authority to declare or defend the country, he has the authority to transfer power, he has the authority to even assign employment of employees and fire them from their jobs in the government.

So this country basically has no institutions and the only institution, if you want to call it institution, is the emir itself and it’s very clearly put out by their Constitution. So preaching other people about democracy and the stand up of the West with Qatar, the hypocrisy of the West to stand with Qatar to for example implement democracy in Syria, rather should be a joke rather than reality considering their own Constitution that they wrote it by themselves which is basically a Constitution that gives the emir the ultimate unique only power in the country.

Press TV: And quickly if you can Entifadh Qanbar, there is a certain camp that this transition of power was met with some worries by the West and particularly the United States.

Do you think that the US has had any influence in terms of some kind of deal with Qatar? We know that obviously they are in need aside from Saudi Arabia of having somebody follow through with their policies in the region. Is there an allegiance that is made there with the United States?

Qanbar: Well I think the United States considered Qatar as almost like an office of public relations that is located conveniently on the [Persian] Gulf. That’s about it.

This is not a country by all means and with my due respect to the Qatari people, the people of Qatar, this is not the way the government practice job. Basically the emir is a secretary for the United States of America hosting their huge amount of power at Central Command (CENTCOM) and also processing the work for other countries such as Israel and other countries in the Middle East.

I think the transfer of power as we see is probably, I don’t know this is a family rule, you could never understand what’s happening exactly and everything comes out as rumors as you may understand.

This is probably a way to shift away, a leeway to shift from Syria policy and the way that Qatar is clearly implicit in the violence and the killing of Syrians.

AHK/KA Click on the source for VIDEO report!

Source: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/06/25/310815/qatari-emir-basically-secretary-of-us/

Disclaimer: This content-post is archived for backup and to keep archived records of any news about Islam, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, Universal Brotherhood, human rights and Separation of Mosque-Church and State. The views expressed by the author and source of this news archive do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Muslim Times.