Andrew Hammond is a writer based in the Middle East. He is the author of The Islamic Utopia: The Illusion of Reform in Saudi Arabia and was Reuters bureau chief in Saudi Arabia. Find him on Twitter @Hammonda1
Tension with its Gulf neighbours began to rise from 2006 when Qatar and Al Jazeera stood with Lebanese Shi’ite group Hizbullah during its war with Israel, while western allied states clearly hoped to see the Iranian-backed militia wiped out.