LAST week鈥檚 failed assassination attempt of the Palestinian negotiating team in Doha, Qatar, raises critical questions that extend far beyond the attack itself. The crux of the problem lies in three interconnected issues: the increasing use of artificial intelligence in targeting individuals, the failure or deliberate negligence of the US-led air defence system, and Qatar鈥檚 vulnerable position as a host to both a major US base and the ceasefire negotiations.
The use of AI will be the topic of a future analysis. Meanwhile, the raid on Qatar did not happen in isolation. The skies over Doha are monitored by the American Air Base in Al Udeid, the largest US military installation in the Middle East. This base is not a marginal outpost; it is the forward headquarters for US Central Command, USCENTCOM, overseeing US military operations throughout the Middle East.
In theory, nothing enters Qatari airspace or nearby region without being detected by the advanced Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) system, which provides air cover for the Gulf Cooperation Council: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and UAE, along with Jordan. IAMD architecture is integrated into the US command-and-control network and operated by USCENTCOM from the US base in Qatar.
Israeli jets violated the same airspace that is ostensibly protected under the IAMD defence umbrella. The more than a dozen Israeli jets travelled more than 2000 KM without raising an alarm or triggering the IAMD air defence. CENTCOM鈥檚 decision not to activate, or failure to activate IAMD, a system largely paid for by the GCC, raises two critical questions where each scenario demands accountability: was it a deliberate choice that left Qatar exposed, or was it a catastrophic system failure.
The first possibility assumes the US military was fully aware of the approaching Israeli aircraft and chose to stand down. This decision could not have been made by local commanders alone. Allowing a foreign military to penetrate protected skies where the largest US base is located would have required authorization from the highest levels of the US government. In this case, Washington effectively greenlit the operation, sacrificing its ally鈥檚 sovereignty and the lives of the Palestinian negotiators.
The second possibility is even more frightening: IAMD did not detect the foreign aircrafts at all. If true, this exposes a blatant vulnerability at the very centre of America鈥檚 regional security architecture. How could the largest and most advanced military base in the Middle East fail to notice hostile jets entering its immediate airspace? Such a failure would undermine the very justification for the base鈥檚 existence and call into question the credibility of IAMD and US security guarantees to defend regional participants.
For Qatar, the message is obvious. Despite hosting more than 10,000 US troops and spending billions to maintain and support the base, its skies are not safe. Hosting an American base does not guarantee protection, worse, the Air Base may provide a false guard or act as a gatekeeper that serves other US ally鈥檚 interests first and foremost, even at the expense of its host country.
If the skies above Doha are not defended by IAMD and Al Udeid Air Base, what is it really protecting, then? Israel?
To date, IAMD has been activated twice, and only to protect Israel, a country that is not a party of IAMD system: first, defending Israel against Iran鈥檚 retaliation in April 2024; and second, to thwart Iran鈥檚 barrage of missiles at Al Udeid Air Base following the joint Israeli/US attack on the Iranian nuclear sites.
The Israeli attack on Doha showed that the American security umbrella over Qatar is porous and intentionally compromised. Failing to own up to America鈥檚 failure to detect and stop the attack against a 鈥渕ajor ally,鈥� Trump offered empty promises that this 鈥渨ould never happen again.鈥� This, of course, was his administration鈥檚 way of evading the real question: why would the US base, built and financed by Qatar, sit silent while American-made Israeli jets bombarded a residential area next door?
On Thursday, September 11, 2025, the US answer came clear in New York. The Trump administration stopped the UN Security Council from voting on a resolution condemning the Israeli attack on Doha. In its place, the UNSC issued a routine press statement merely admonishing the raid. Rather than demanding a binding resolution, Qatar and its media spun the useless statement as a major diplomatic victory.
Such a statement is a non-binding press note, and not a legally significant resolution. A resolution requires a formal vote and carries legal weight, whereas a press release is merely a statement read by the Council president. Dressing up a press note as a 鈥渞esolution鈥� appears to be a deliberate attempt to shield the Trump administration from embarrassment and to obscure its tacit support for Israel鈥檚 raid. In accepting a meagre press statement, Qatar chose to protect Trump from having to cast a definitive vote, rather than forcing the US to reveal its true stance on Israel鈥檚 actions.
Beyond the immediate geopolitics, the Israeli air raid on Qatar delivers a sharp warning to other countries in the region: what is the value of a military alliance with the US if the supposed protector decides which threats to block and which to permit? The reality is clear, Washington has chosen to prioritize the interests of its subsidized ally, Israel, with more than $17.9 billion in the last two years alone, over the very host nation that bankrolls the American military base with $10 billion.
Who knows which nation Washington will elevate next, and at whose expense? This is the risk of such alliances where host countries left naked the moment America decides another ally鈥檚 interests outweigh their own.
Will the emergency Arab-Islamic summit in Doha this week rise to meet this new reality? Or will it descend into Act II of the UNSC farce with a new toothless declaration, and hand Trump yet another free pass to double-cross his allies?
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CounterPunch.org, September 15. Jamal Kanj is the author of Children of Catastrophe: Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America, and other books.