Book

Between Two Republics

Prof. Dr. Malik bin Rabi' Al Dahlan

Date of publication: July 15, 2026 00:17 KSA

Al-Tarif Dialogues

I arrived in Washington in a lull imposed by the World Cup, as though the world needed a brief respite from its turmoil. The previous tournament was in Qatar, and this one is mostly held in the United States, while the American Republic celebrates 250 years since its Declaration of Independence. But politics knows no final whistle. At the time I was arriving in Washington, Mark Carney was leaving the NATO summit, heading to Jeddah, in the first visit of a Canadian prime minister to the Kingdom in twenty-six years. He came to discuss trade and investment, energy and minerals, artificial intelligence, and education; that is, the inter-trade between middle powers, which no longer wait for their relations to pass through a single center. From Washington, Jeddah seemed to me a quiet witness to a changing international architecture; a world not born from the ruins of the old order, but taking shape in its cracks. Then came the news of the death of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, then the news of the death of Senator Lindsey Graham. Washington was celebrating its republic. And the world, in silence, was bidding farewell to another republic: that world born after the Cold War, which believed that free trade, development, law, and cross-border institutions could regulate power. In 1995, the World Trade Organization was founded, Sheikh Hamad assumed power in Qatar, and Graham began his work in the U.S. House of Representatives. They were, despite their different positions, children of the same era. Then came September 11, and America's relationship with the Islamic world changed. At that stage, I began my work at the America and the Islamic World Forum, trying with others to keep the door of dialogue open, while the doors of war were widening. Then came Iraq, the region fragmented, and law became, in many cases, subordinate to power, rather than regulating it. Graham represented an influential American face of that era, with his positions on Iraq, Iran, and Israel. As for Sheikh Hamad, he chose a different Arab path. He found himself building a state at a moment when liquefied gas became foreign policy, media became sovereign power, education and health became investment in human beings, and the constitution became a new contract between the state and its society, while Washington was redefining its relationship with the Islamic world through the war on terror. Sheikh Hamad combined revolution and wealth; a revolutionary against the narrowness of the possible, and a sage in transforming wealth into institutions, institutions into influence, and influence into a presence that exceeds the size of the state. People may differ on some of his choices, but it is difficult to disagree that he left the Gulf with a wider horizon, more self-confident, and more able to address the world from a position of partnership and equality. And I remembered, as I followed his funeral ceremonies, the Law Forum in Qatar, when we worked on laying the cornerstone of the 'Global Commitment to the Rule of Law.' The project was not seeking victory for one side, but a rule that all parties adhere to. But the rockets, as they passed through the sky of Doha on the day of his departure, seemed like the harshest comment on the project that his generation spent a lifetime building. Therefore, it seemed to me that condolences alone are not enough. It also befits us to say: Thank you, Sheikh Hamad. Before leaving Washington, I passed by the Martin Luther King memorial. What remained in my mind was not the statue, but that passage between two blocks of stone. Perhaps nations also cross like this; not in a single leap, but through passages created by the cracks of the past, until the threshold of hope becomes the beginning of a new path. And we ask God to have mercy on Sheikh Hamad, and to guide all Gulf leaders, bless them, and unite their word, for they are not merely inheriting men, but taking on the responsibility of crossing to the next threshold. Order begins in Al-Tarif... and in the world it is tested. * Explanatory note: The United States celebrates this year the 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence (1776–2026). During my visit to Washington, I passed by the memorial of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the civil rights movement, whose design was inspired by his famous phrase: 'Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope,' and his saying: 'The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.'

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