SCENESETTER FOR CODEL HINOJOSA'S NOVEMBER 13-14

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 DOHA 000777 SIPDIS H PLEASE PASS TO CODEL HINOJOSA E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/03/2018 TAGS: PREL PGOV KPAO SCUL QA SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR CODEL HINOJOSA'S NOVEMBER 13-14 VISIT TO QATAR Classified By: AMBASSADOR JOSEPH E. LEBARON, FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D ). ¶1. (U) Embassy Doha welcomes your visit to Qatar. We have requested meetings for you with the Amir, the Prime Minister/Foreign Minister, and the Amir,s wife, Sheikha Mozah, who heads the Qatar Foundation, the organization that oversees the six U.S. universities in Qatar. Yours will be one of the largest congressional delegations to visit Qatar in the past year and presents an excellent opportunity to advance the important U.S.-Qatar educational partnership. ¶2. (C) Below we provide the Country Team's views on how your visit can best advance the U.S. Government's strategic objectives in Qatar. We also discuss the key strategic trends in U.S.-Qatari relations over the coming three years. We start, however, with a brief overview of the bilateral relationship. -------------- THE U.S.-QATAR RELATIONSHIP -------------- ¶3. (C) The breadth and depth of Qatar's relationship with the United States is impressive, especially for a country the size of Connecticut, with only 1.7 million inhabitants, of whom only about 225,000 are actually Qatari citizens. -- Because it is so small and its energy resources so large, Qatar now has an annual per capita income of over $60,000. Even through the current global financial crisis, Qatar's national revenues will continue growing, and Qatar should soon have the highest per capita income in the world. -- Qatar,s leaders have invested a major portion of that new wealth in the education of their citizens, and have turned decisively to the Unites States for help. Qatar has thus far imported branch campuses of six U.S. universities, including Texas A&M, Carnegie-Mellon, Weill-Cornell Medical School, Georgetown, Virginia Commonwealth, and Northwestern. The Brookings Institution and RAND Corporation have also opened offices here, at the Qataris, request. RAND in particular is assisting Qatar in implementing what RAND analysts have described as "the most ambitious K-12 modernization project we have ever seen anywhere in the world." -- Undergirding this long-term partnership in the education sector is a U.S.-Qatari economic relationship that is just as vital. Qatar possesses the third largest natural gas reserves in the world after Iran and Russia. U.S energy companies have invested tens of billions of dollars in the oil and gas sector here, helping make Qatar the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas. With the opening next year of a major regasification terminal at "Golden Pass" in south Texas, on the Louisiana border, Qatar is expected to become in 2009 one of the most important suppliers of imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the U.S. market. -- Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA),is a growing potential source of direct investment in the United States and elsewhere. QIA will be increasingly important to the United States as it grows in parallel with our own need for foreign investment. Given Qatar's wealth, the country also has great potential to be a partner in providing aid to struggling regional states, and we frequently approach them about participating financially in these initiatives. -- Vast wealth has bolstered the country's political ambitions, leading to Qatari foreign policy initiatives that have often been at odds with U.S. objectives, including Qatar's relations with Hamas and Syria. The Qataris, recent success, however, in brokering a deal among Lebanon,s political factions and the seriousness with which they are undertaking a new initiative to help resolve the problems in Darfur, may signal a growing maturity in Qatar,s regional foreign policy. -- Qatar's location, wide-ranging foreign relations, fast-growing economy, and expanding transportation links have made counterterrorism cooperation, including terrorist financing, a key aspect of our relationship. Qatar's wealth, in particular, means its citizens are potential sources of money for violent extremists and cooperative efforts to target and prevent these financial flows are central to our bilateral agenda. -- The U.S.-Qatar military relationship is extremely DOHA 00000777 002 OF 004 important. Qatar provides the U.S. military exceptional access to two major Qatari military installations, Al Udaid Air Base and Camp As-Saylieh - perhaps CENTCOM's most important operating installations outside of Iraq. Qatar charges us no rent, and in fact is funding over USD 700 million in construction projects for the exclusive use of the U.S. military. -- Qatar's rapid growth, and the resulting massive demand for foreign workers to develop the country's infrastructure, often leads to exploitation and abysmal working conditions for the laborers. The USG is concerned about the treatment of foreign workers in Qatar, which has been ranked on Tier 3 - the lowest - in the State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report for 2008. -- Al Jazeera, the television network with an Arabic-speaking audience of some 60 million, is based in Qatar and funded by the Amir. The network's often biased coverage, particularly of issues important to the United States, has long been an irritant in our bilateral relationship. We nevertheless recognize the value of appearing on Al Jazeera in order to ensure that official U.S. voices are heard in the Arab world, and regularly engage Al Jazeera,s management and journalists in this regard. -------------- -------------- THE EDUCATIONAL PARTNERSHIP: KEY TRENDS THROUGH 2011 -------------- -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Over the next three years, we believe the following are the major trends with the greatest potential influence on the U.S.-Qatari educational partnership. It is here where your visit, and those of other American officials, can have the most important impact. -- (SBU) The Qatari Government will continue its efforts to modernize its K-12 and higher education systems based on a largely American model, with U.S. institutions as long-term partners. -- (SBU) Qatar Foundation will seek more U.S. branch campuses in Education City, focusing first on schools that offer graduate degrees in law and business. -- (SBU) As their student bodies grow, U.S. universities at Education City will endeavor to fill their classrooms with more students from elsewhere in the region, and even further afield, as they continue to face difficulty in recruiting enough qualified Qatari students. -- (SBU) Qatari women will continue to outnumber men in higher education, both at U.S. schools and Qatar University, where they currently make up more than 75% of the Qatari student population. We do not expect this trend to change as long as the Qatari Government offers secure, well-paid government jobs with generous benefits to men with no higher education. (NOTE: Qatari Government statistics indicate that as many as 45% of Qatari boys do not finish high school, let alone attend college. END NOTE) -- (SBU) Although Qatar currently hosts a vocational school operated by the Canadian College of the North Atlantic, the Ministry of Education will continue looking to other models, including Australia, to create a vocational/technical education system that grants certificates and licenses recognized by the private sector and Qatar University. -- (SBU) Because of the absence of sufficient vocational/technical training, and the inability of many Qataris to "make the grade" at Education City, a growing number of companies and Qatari government agencies will see the benefit of sending more new hires to earn two, four, and six-year degrees in the United States in exchange for working for them for a fixed period of time. Some companies and government agencies will also seek the assistance of U.S.-based firms and schools to provide focused on-the-job training to new hires. -- (SBU) In addition to its expanding higher education portfolio, Qatar will continue its "Outstanding Schools Initiative8 to attract quality high schools with specialized curricula from the United States and Europe. The Debakey School of Houston is so far the only school to have opened its doors under this initiative. -- (SBU) Despite its education challenges and opposition in some quarters to the radical changes that modernization is DOHA 00000777 003 OF 004 bringing to the education system, Qatar will not be a major source of young people leaving to engage in terrorism, largely due to its small size and great wealth. Some of Qatar's citizens, however, may support terrorism financially, perhaps outstripping the ability of government agencies to stop it. -------------- -------------- EXPORTING EDUCATION: MAJOR GOALS OF OUR STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP -------------- -------------- ¶5. (SBU) The Amir and his wife are investing billions in trying to create an alternative future for their own youth and for others in the region ) an alternative to the path of extremism and intolerance that has beset so many other parts of the Middle East. Education is the primary vehicle they are using to create that alternative future. In this sense, Qatar is unique in the world, because it is not only seeking to modernize its educational system on an American model, but is actually importing high-quality American institutions to help them achieve that goal. ¶6. (SBU) Based on mutual agreement, each U.S. school operating here has agreed to issue degrees indistinguishable from those conferred at their home campuses, and to provide the same quality of instructors and courses. Entrance requirements are also exactly the same as for the main U.S. campuses. Because of these rigorous standards, Qatar,s high schools simply do not produce enough qualified graduates to fill even 40% of the seats at these universities. The bulk of Education City,s student body is, therefore, non-Qatari. ¶7. (SBU) It will take at least a generation for Qatari high schools to produce enough graduates to form a substantial majority of the student body at Education City,s U.S. universities, so the schools will need to continue to focus their recruitment efforts on the region beyond Qatar. This is a goal shared by the Qatar Foundation, which offers a certain number of scholarships to non-Qataris each year. Qatar,s neighbors, many of whom are also building new universities and trying to attract American schools, have been reticent to send their students here on scholarships. ¶8. (SBU) In this context, the importance of Education City in helping the coming generations of this region,s leaders better understand and empathize with the United States and our values will only grow. We need to expand and deepen our partnership in education beyond the institutions already at Education City to include vocational and technical schools, as well as preparatory high schools. ¶9. (SBU) The United States has the best schools in the world to offer, and we should take every opportunity to promote them with a Qatari leadership that is clearly positively disposed toward American education. Doing so would not only benefit these schools commercially, but would further enhance understanding between our people and provide more opportunities for the many Qataris and others in the region who cannot or do not want to attend the elite schools already present in Education City. -------------- HOW YOUR VISIT CAN HELP THESE STRATEGIC GOALS -------------- ¶10. (SBU) We believe the following approach will help your visit advance these goals: -- (SBU) Applaud the Amir,s and Sheikha Mozah,s strategic decision to invest in American education for their people. Encourage them to expand their initiatives to include U.S. vocational, technical and college preparatory schools ) by far the best in the world. -- (SBU) Emphasize that you see our partnership on education as every bit as strategic to our two countries as our military and economic relationships. Offer your assistance in identifying more schools that may be interested in coming to Qatar, and in facilitating those relationships in any way possible. -- (SBU) Commend Qatar,s leaders for the alternative future that they are trying to create for the region through these investments in their children,s education; seek their thoughts on how they plan to make Education City a regional destination for quality education, and ask how the USG or American companies could be helpful in that endeavor. DOHA 00000777 004 OF 004 -- (SBU) If your interlocutors raise negative perceptions about visa processing delays and border entry procedures for Qatari students going to study in the United States, note that this is an issue that Congress follows closely and that U.S. agencies are working hard to smooth out while maintaining safe and secure borders. LeBaron