In an interview with the Carnegie Middle East Center, AGSIW Senior Resident Scholar Hussein Ibish discussed the causes and implications of the current GCC-Qatar situation:

I think for the Saudis, the focus is more on … Qatar’s relations with Iran. I think everybody understands that Qatar shares the North Field with Iran … it has to maintain decent relations with it. But Qatar has a very long history, back to the old idea of access to resistance and supporting Hamas, which is continually trying to have one foot in the Arab camp and one foot in the Iranian camp, good relations with Hezbollah, and constantly promoting them, and a bunch of things that are definitely true, that have given Qatar a qualitative role in helping Iran in its regional agenda.

Ibish also commented on U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s Twitter response to the crisis for Arab News: 

”Trump’s tweets slam the door shut on the Qatar’s final hope: that American mediation would give it a face-saving way out without having to make too many compromises.”