QATAR -- On a recent visit to Qatar, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak wanted to satisfy his curiosity about something bothering him and most other Arab rulers. It was past midnight when he descended unannounced on the Jazeera TV station. His surprise was hardly less than that of staff still around at such an hour, and, turning reproachfully to Safwat Sharif, boss of Egypt's vast broadcasting empire, he was heard to exclaim: "All this trouble -- and from a matchbox like this."
Jazeera's 300 employees are crammed into little more than a glorified Nissen hut. Yet nothing in recent times has more thrilled Arabs, or exasperated their leaders, than the commodity -- uncensored news and the freest commentary they have ever heard before -- produced by this cubicle in the desert.
Five years ago, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani overthrew his father in a bloodless palace coup. It hardly electrified a watching world; with a native population of some 100,000, Qatar was, after all, the tiniest Arab country, and Doha is perhaps the dullest capital on earth. But the 43-year-old leader quickly enlivened things with "democratization" from on high -- and the establishment of a satellite TV network.