The Tucker Carlson Show
War With Iran? The Prime Minister of Qatar Is Being Attacked in the Media for Wanting to Stop It
Fri, 07 Mar 2025
There’s enormous pressure on the United States to participate in a brand new war against Iran. The government of Qatar thinks that’s unwise, so of course they’re being slandered relentlessly in American media. Qatar’s prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, explains. (00:00) How the Left Used the World Cup to Attack Qatar (03:03) Cultural Imperialism (04:37) Attacks on the Nuclear Family Worldwide (09:23) Why Does Corporate Media Hate Qatar? (12:41) Qatar’s Hamas Office (20:00) Is Qatar an Enemy of the United States? Paid partnerships with: ExpressVPN: Go to https://ExpressVPN.com/Tucker and find out how you can get 4 months of ExpressVPN free! Cozy Earth: https://CozyEarth.com/Tucker code TUCKER Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Why was Qatar criticized during the World Cup?
So you had the World Cup a few years ago here. It was very widely covered around the world, and part of the coverage, maybe the majority of the coverage, was not about soccer, football. It was about your country and how it was, you know, needed to come into line with the social mores of the West, etc. There was a lot of lecturing to your country about the way that you live. Did you feel that?
Well, it's unfortunate, you know, there are... The whole purpose of hosting the World Cup is to bring the world together in that country, to put the country in the spotlight about the football, about the tournament and about people coming together. Unfortunately, countries and some NGOs try to use this as an opportunity to attack
Chapter 2: What are the cultural values Qatar wants to preserve?
on values of the society itself, on the values of the country, of the community, by using it as an opportunity to change these values and to impose their own values on our country and our people. That's something that was expected from our side that we will be attacked. We will be hearing a lot of lectures about values and things that are not belongs to us.
And basically, our decision from the beginning that we don't need to change the country for one month tournament. And I cannot change the value of a whole society and impose on them values that I don't believe in. And it's against every principle in our society, against the principles of Islam, against the principles of Christianity as well.
And that's basically, we said very clear, we respect everybody who's coming here as long as they are respecting the laws in that country, as you are expecting from the Qataris when they visit any of your countries in Europe, to respect your laws. And basically that's what we want from the people. Anything happen in their personal life, it's their personal life.
But nothing should happen in public against the laws of the state of Qatar. And we will never change. The problem that those countries and NGOs put a lot of efforts in demonizing this World Cup in order to impose their values, yet there were many things happening around the world, and they are just turning a blind eye.
If they put some efforts and energy on those real issues that affecting the human lives around the world, It would be much better than the waste investment that was in campaigns against the country to change its values, to impose new values which are not even related to us.
So why do you think that is? This used to be called cultural imperialism, taking your values and using force to impose them on another society. But this is probably the richest country per capita in the world. It's free. Qataris can come and go. They don't have to live here. They choose to live here. and your values are thousands of years old, why would it be important for an NGO?
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Chapter 3: Why does corporate media target Qatar?
I thought they were supposed to be feeding people, but instead they're yelling at you for not having enough transgender Qataris. What is the point of that? What do you think that actually is? What are they trying to do?
Well, I think it's mainly driven by an agenda that these are the things that we would like to see in countries that they are not accepting it, you know, and societies that they are not accepting it. We need to make it normal for them. We need to normalize it. A lot didn't accept the fact that Qatar is a small Arab country, can host a world-class tournament.
Basically, they were like, you know, how a lot of attacks that why Qatar won the World Cup, like they don't have even the culture of the World Cup. I don't know what's, you know, what does it mean if... If I am a country, like a marginal country, I don't have the right to host a world tournament. And this is more about, honestly, I see it like more racism and superiority.
And that's basically, I think, the main driver for this.
So an official here told me a funny story, and I want to check to see if it's true. This person told me that some... Bureau or commission in the United Nations was rating the human rights here in Qatar and said, in order to score higher, you have to build nursing homes for your old people to live.
And this person tried to explain, you know, we don't have nursing homes because old people, parents live with their children. But you built them anyway in order to get a higher score on this, and they remained empty.
Is that true? Well, it is true, actually. Sometimes when you have international organizations trying to impose certain conditions in order to give you the better status that will make you look good, It requires from you some steps that you will do that it's not even needed here in this kind of society. Look, Qatar is a very small country. The people here, family matters for us.
Parents matter for us. We are indebted to our parents until the last day in their life or in our lives, whatever comes first. If someone will leave his parents alone without taking care of it, he will be publicly shamed by the society. It's not really an acceptable custom or habit in this country to have your elder, to have your parents staying in a senior home.
he's the one the parents are the ones who took care of us when we were children until we grew up to become independent and we should we have the duty to take care of them and that's really the genuine nature of the Qatari society so that's why you end up with something that you don't need. It's not according to your value. It's not according to your religion.
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Chapter 4: How does Qatar's relationship with Hamas affect its image?
But I keep reading reference to Qatar as anti-American or pro-Islamist or a threat to the United States somehow. Where do those attacks come from, do you think?
Look, as a country, we always want to do the right things. And basically, the right things, not only for our people, but for our people, for our region, and for our friends. And when you are trying to do the right things, Sometimes you change your mind, you know, when you hear this kind of criticism.
But it wasn't really in our culture because we believe that it serves the real cause behind all these efforts is to bring peace. Peace for the people, peace for the region. and peace for our friends. And basically, the peace is the main foundation for us, for our people to prosper. And peace has a lot of enemies.
A lot of enemies who wants to undermine it for political reason, who wants to undermine it for economical reason, who wants to demonize your effort in order to make sure that every step you will take will be suspicious in order to control also the parties that you are helping in that and basically they don't know by doing such a thing they are not harming us but they are harming
the region, and they are harming our friends, including the United States. And having an ally and partner and friend like Qatar with the air base as one example, and working together very closely on
a lot of issues, a lot of files, helping bringing Americans home from different countries, whether it was in the evacuation in Afghanistan, whether it's in American hostages all around the world, mediating in different conflicts. They basically, if they keep criticizing Qatar and attacking Qatar, They think that this is just harming Qatar and Qatar reputation. It's not.
It's actually because we always like, you know, we go back to the results. We focus on the outcome and we think about it that that should be our objective and we should focus there and we shouldn't really disturb ourselves with any noise. But they don't know that this is harming the U.S. and the U.S. interest at the end of the day.
So my sense is that part of the criticism and the confusion from Americans, well, I think two causes. One, you have a Hamas office here. And Hamas has been designated, I think, repeatedly by the U.S. government and certainly by the Congress as a terror organization. And people say, well, how could you have a Hamas office here? What is that?
We have to go back to the root of this office. Like, why it's here in the first place? And Hamas office, when it was opened here in the first place, it was opened with full transparency and full consultation and actually even request from the U.S. The U.S.
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Chapter 5: Is Qatar an ally or enemy of the United States?
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So the president's envoy in this region and to Ukraine and globally at this point is Steve Witkoff, his friend. And Witkoff, who I think has done a good, for the record, I think has done a good job, but was attacked in some U.S. media for his, he had done business in your country. And he was attacked as a tool of your government.
Well, you know, sometimes when you read the reports about Qatar, you feel that this is a superpower that controls everyone and everyone is a tool in the hand of Qatar. Look, this is all a joke. Steve is a respected businessman. He has done business. We didn't do anything wrong with him. We have done business. I've known him for a long time. I attended his son's wedding.
I have a personal relationship and all this happened before even the election, you know, before the election taking place. This was, I think, last February, just months before the election. And this friendship and relationship, it means that there is a trust between two people.
And this trust will, of course, matter for, you know, the working relationship that we have and partnership that US and Qatar has. And it benefited the deal at the end of the day. The man traveled all the way. He stayed here. He spent a few days in Doha. He participated with us in the negotiation. He pushed when it was required. He did a great job.
We, as, you know, as partners, we achieved the deal at the end of the day. The deal wouldn't be achieved without, you know, with Qatar single-handedly or with the United States single-handedly. He needs all of us. All of us are one team and work together now. People are attacking him for his relation with Qatar and being a tool in Qatar.
If you go back and trace back, those people who are not interested in having a deal, not interested in having, they put their political interests ahead of the interests of even the hostages themselves. How many families in Israel celebrated the return of their loved ones. I'm not going to talk about Gaza. There's hundreds of thousands of people. They've been fed after a very long war.
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Chapter 6: Why is Qatar's relationship with Iran controversial?
Against Iran. Against Iran, yeah. Right, which was backing Hezbollah when you were opposed.
And the same thing in Lebanon. And those differences are... Put aside, when it comes to the bilateral, we made the bilateral as a relationship of necessity that we need to have this engagement together all the time. Those disagreements, we talk about them, we try to understand each other's concern, and we try to find a common ground.
And basically, that's what we expect from other countries to do when they are around neighbors that some others have disagreements with. You need to engage. Now, this is criticized in the U.S. that we are close to Iran. In terms of what? In terms of policies that have controversies with the U.S.? It's not true. Our policy has been very clear. Our policy is based on principles.
Our policy has zero enemies. We have to have friends with everyone. We would like to see peace in our region. We would like to see peace around the world. If we see innocent people under attack, whatever their backgrounds, We will always help them and we'll support them. These are the things that our foreign policy is standing for.
So if they see me that, you know, this is like putting me on a club on the other, they are watching me from thousands of miles away. They don't know what's happening in this region. They have no knowledge about it. This relationship, it's an important relationship, not for me, for the entire GCC and for the entire GCC stability. Look, Tucker, I think that there is a misunderstanding.
Or let's say maybe it's more about a legacy issue. That the U.S. needs to take care of the whole world problem. This shouldn't be the case. Each region needs to address their own problems, needs to make sure that this region is stable. The U.S. is the friend and the ally and partner of all the GCC countries. So the U.S. expects from us
to come to them with vision that this is the way we would like to see the region. And that's the way we are going to work on the region. And we would like to have also your support in that direction. That's, I believe, how the relationship should work between us and the U.S.
Not, I'm waiting for the U.S., what's the problem between them and Iran, and then I based my dealing with Iran based on what the U.S. want. The U.S. is waiting to listen to me, what I need from Iran, because I am the friend of the U.S., and Iran is my next-door neighbor.
And basically, I think this misunderstanding, or let's say the legacy issue, that's what's driving this whole narrative floating here and there. I think that, you know, one day everything will be resolved diplomatically. If I take a stand against my neighbor because of an external issue, very strong stand, what I'm going to do if those two adversaries come together?
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Chapter 7: What are the potential consequences of a war with Iran?
They still have the revolutionary government from 1979 in power, right?
Yes, yeah. I mean, if it would lead to a result, we wouldn't be in that situation until now.
Fidel Castro died in Havana after 50 years of U.S. sanctions.
So just going back, sanctions, what does it create? It pressures the people. It starves them. It creates black markets. It creates a whole illegal system. If the sanctions are coming out of the U.S., it actually prevents all the U.S. interests or companies to have business and lose the opportunities for other countries. So I don't see a world where the sanctions work.
Honestly, for us, as I told you, it's a core principle in our foreign policy. We refuse, we don't support sanctions at all. And sanctioning countries I'm talking about. And sanctioning countries is just making the situation much worse.
So three of the biggest oil producing countries in the world, Venezuela, Russia, Iran, have been under, I mean, the most extensive sanctions in history. Yes. They're still selling oil, though.
Oh, yeah.
Like a lot of oil.
Yeah. I think it's mainly it's sold in different means, in different currencies. And look, Tucker, I recall when The Russian sanction came out at the beginning of the war between Russia and Ukraine. I had an interview in one of the US media channels and I said very clearly that sanctions will only create a parallel marketplace for other currencies.
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