Qatar’s wealth and prestige are built on the incompetence of the rulers of Iran’s Islamic Republic. As long as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his gang of fools are in charge in Tehran, Doha needn’t worry about competition for its vast liquid natural gas (LNG) empire, nor for its role as duplicitous interlocutor between the West and the most radical parts of the Islamic world.
The Western debate surrounding Iran tends to center on uranium centrifuges, sanctions, missiles, and sometimes regime change. But for Qatar, Iran’s small, natural gas-rich neighbor across the Persian Gulf, none of those matters. What does matter? Preventing the collapse of the Islamic Republic.
Why?
Qatar’s extraordinary prosperity is anchored in the world’s largest natural gas reservoir, the North Dome–South Pars field, which it shares with Iran. Together, the two countries sit atop roughly 2,000 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven gas reserves. That’s nearly 30 percent of the global total. But what should have been an equal partnership has turned into one of the most asymmetric energy relationships in the world.
On the Qatari side, efficiency, massive investment, and Western technology transformed the North Dome into an energy superpower. Since the early 90s, Doha has invested tens of billions of dollars in LNG infrastructure and built a large fleet of Q-Flex and Q-Max carriers, the world’s largest gas tankers. In 2022, it exported about 81 million metric tons of LNG, roughly 20 percent of global supply, earning $87 billion in revenue from LNG, LPG, and condensate exports. The state-owned QatarEnergy is now expanding capacity to 142 million tons per year by 2030, an increase of nearly 84 percent.
Across the maritime border, the contrast is stark. Despite holding more than 1,100 Tcf of gas reserves — greater than Qatar’s — Iran exports virtually none as LNG. Recurrent sanctions, corruption, and technological isolation have crippled South Pars development. When TotalEnergies pulled out in 2018 under U.S. pressure, a $5 billion expansion project collapsed. Since then, Iran’s gas reinjection systems have stagnated, and its domestic consumption has soared, forcing the regime to import gas from Turkmenistan during peak winter months. Iran’s failure to monetize its share of the field has cost it hundreds of billions of dollars over the past three decades.
For Qatar, Iran’s dysfunction is a built-in subsidy. Every cubic meter Tehran fails to produce or liquefy strengthens Doha’s dominance in Asian markets, from South Korea and Japan to India and China. A capable, sanctions-free Iran with access to Western capital could rival Qatar within a decade. But as long as Tehran remains isolated and inefficient, Doha’s position is secure.
The Geopolitics of a Weak Neighbor
Qatar’s second reason for wanting the Islamic Republic to endure is geopolitical. The existence of the clerical regime grants Doha a unique niche as the Persian Gulf’s indispensable go-between. Qatar can talk to actors the West won’t, Hamas, the Taliban, and Tehran’s leadership itself.
A post-Islamist, normal Iran would end this advantage. An Iran welcomed back into the global system would speak directly to Washington, London, and Paris, cutting out Doha as an intermediary
Doha’s hedging is deliberate. It hosts Al-Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East, while maintaining cordial ties with Tehran. This balancing act only works because Iran remains isolated.
Beyond economics and geopolitics, a subtle ideological current binds Doha and Tehran. Though one is Sunni and the other Shiite, both have backed Islamist movements that challenge the secular, Western-aligned order. Tehran’s sponsorship of Hamas, and Doha’s financial and political patronage of the same group, exemplify this trans-sectarian alliance of convenience.
A nationalist or technocratic government in Tehran would have little interest in supporting such causes, erasing one of the few points of strategic alignment between the two capitals.
The Islamic Republic’s inefficiency guarantees Doha’s economic dominance in the LNG market; its isolation underwrites Qatar’s diplomatic leverage; its revolutionary foreign policy secures Doha’s ideological goals. A stable but stagnant and Islamist Tehran is a known quantity, a profitable, predictable neighbor that destabilizes Qatar’s rivals through Hamas and other proxies. A free and functional Iran, by contrast, would be a direct competitor for investment, energy markets, and Western goodwill.
Washington leans hard on Qatar as a mediator in its relations with Tehran. But the United States should remember Qatar’s underlying calculus: For Doha, the Islamic Republic is a valuable asset that must survive.
Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior adviser for Iran and financial economics at FDD, specializing in Iran’s economy and financial markets, sanctions, and illicit finance.