Matt Bevan

Different ethnicity, different language, different religion, Shia instead of Sunni Islam.

And a totally different regime.

A fundamentalist theocracy that had overthrown their monarch in a violent revolution.

Qatar would need to find a bigger, scarier friend.

And so they went to the biggest and scariest friend there is.

It's my honor to welcome the Emir of Gutter to the Oval Office.

I'm pretty sure George W. Bush just called him the Emir of Gutter.

But anyway.

So your highness, it's such an honor to have you here.

To secure this new friendship, Hamad agreed to host an enormous American air base in his country.

And to say thanks, the US moved its regional base of operations to Qatar.

ahead of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

This is CENTCOM, the US military's central command, airlifted from Florida, air-conditioned against the blinding desert heat.

As a result, Qatar became the epicentre of the US military's operations in the Middle East.

Luring the Americans gave his tiny country a powerful protector against at times aggressive neighbours.

But it wasn't just about demonstrating military strength and bringing in guys with big guns.

Hamad wanted to show that Qatar was allied to the West in ideological ways as well.

So he started democratic reforms, then spent millions setting up Al Jazeera.

By advocating for a freer press in a region where that's not really a thing, Al Jazeera became both a thorn in the side of authoritarian regimes and the most important platform for those regimes to communicate with the wider world.

Just about every government in the region has, for a time, closed Al Jazeera's bureau.