Tiny Qatar, the world's richest country in per capita terms, has leveraged its natural gas wealth to emerge as a leading backer of Islamist causes, paralleling the role the much-larger, oil-rich Saudi Arabia has long played, to promote militant groups in countries stretching from the Maghreb to Southeast Asia. Qatar is the world's largest supplier of liquefied natural gas and boasts one of the world's biggest sovereign wealth funds.

Located on the edge of the Arabian Peninsula, Qatar has propped up violent jihadists. It has thus contributed, among others, to the rise of the terrorist Islamic State group and to Libya's descent into a lawless playground for Islamist militias.

In contrast to Saudi Arabia's sclerotic leadership, Qatar's 34-year-old emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, is the youngest head of state in the Arab world. In fact, Qatar, which controls the Al Jazeera television network, seeks to present itself as a "progressive" oasis in the Persian Gulf — a nation that aspires to be "modern" in a way that few other Arab monarchies do, with the exception of Dubai.