Qatar 'Rape Victim' Convicted Of Adultery

I see a lot of comments lately saying "Why is Qatar an ally?" or something to effect of being so surprised that we could tolerate such a close relationship despite all of the inconsistencies in our policies on human rights. This appears to resonate with the other Gulf countries as well.

If our political science research serves us well, our alliances with the Gulf countries will dissolve immediately following the absence of security threats -- in this case deriving from regional insurgency groups and Iran. As you can imagine, we're in a for a very long alliance with the Gulf monarchies. A good example to think about is how the United States, Britain, and France teamed up with the Soviet Union to defeat Germany, but after Germany fell, relations between the two sides went sour due to their policy differences, i.e. communism. I see the same playing out scenario here.

This is not to say that this corresponds to all alliances. The longest lasting alliances are those with similar policy preferences. Take the United States and the UK -- both democracies, capitalist economies, relatively secular in government, and proponents of civil liberties and human rights; the 'special' relationship.

One may ask: can't we not be allies and still work together still? Well... Isn't working together kind of an alliance? I mean, we rely on these countries for the financial contributions, their intelligence capabilities, the fact they are in the region and can offer logistic support such as hosting military assets.

In essence, these alliances are purely security related and somewhat economic. We're allies out of necessity, nothing more. It's absolutely terrible to see this happen, but I don't think we should be surprised.

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