The Role of Qatar in Arab World's Uprisings: Prospects and Limitations

Qatar tries to play a considerable role in the recent popular uprisings of the MENA region and the new developments taken place in the Arab world. It has an ambition to upgrade its influence in the MENA region to reach the role played by core regional players such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia. This paper tries to consider this question and see that whether Qatar has the potentials to play a stable and permanent role in the Arab world affairs and in doing so what limitations it may faceto? The paper believes that Qatar`s strategic relations with the West and its economic advantages along with soft power it gained may create good points for playing an effective role. Nevertheless, Qatar's dependency in foreign policy, lack of constant principals and contradiction in its orientation in foreign policy joined with weaknesses in the domain of hard power, are impediments that prevent Qatar from transforming its short term role playing in the region into a permanent regional role and influence.