Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s visit to Doha at the end of July, right before heading to Washington, indicated that for the first time ever Saudi Arabia was no longer the most powerful player on the field, or at least ceased to be the only player that had significant influence on the Yemeni scene, as had been the case since the 1960s.

Qatar is currently playing an important political role in Yemen, extending the one that it played during the 1994 war between former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and then-Vice President Ali Salim al-Beidh — who were both partners in the same Yemeni national unity government — and their respective allies. That role was resurrected during the Yemeni government’s war against the Houthis, who constituted a suitable avenue for Qatar’s return to the Yemeni arena. During 2007 and 2008, Qatar was the prominent influence broker in the most important of Yemeni issues, whereby it succeeded in convincing the Houthis to endorse its role. Qatar’s initiative to end the war between the state and the Houthis in 2008 led to the latter’s re-emergence, and to the former president later describing the accord reached as the “Dokha (dizziness) Accord” instead of the Doha Accord, to symbolize his, and the majority of Yemeni factions, including the government’s, rejection of Qatari involvement — which made of the Houthis a faction equal in importance to the state.

It would seem that Qatar knew, at the time, the level of influence that Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar — the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated adviser to the current Yemeni president, who was also Saleh’s right-hand man before defecting from his ranks in March 2011 — had, because he represented the government of Sanaa during Qatari-sponsored talks with the Houthis. As a result, Doha endeavored to establish strong relations with the man, resulting in Qatar standing by his side, for it to exploit him on the Yemeni internal scene, especially following the former Yemeni president’s refusal to attend the Gaza Summit meeting held on Jan. 16, 2009, in Doha — a refusal that greatly complicated his relationship with Qatar.

The Arab revolutions that began in 2011 gave Qatar a golden opportunity to fully enter the fray and provide abundant financial, media and political support to the Yemeni opposition, which is mostly composed of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qatar’s foreign minister was the first international party who called on the former president to step down, a demand to which Saleh responded, in front of a huge crowd of supporters, during his Sabeen Square speech on April 8, 2011, when he said, “We derive our legitimacy from the strength of our glorious Yemeni people, not from Qatar, whose initiative we reject.”