The Middle East fluctuates between various geopolitical trends, seemingly unable to free itself from the grip of national interests, despite the prevalence of mutual interests. For Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the mutual benefits are many, and longstanding, yet much to the consternation of the Saudis, during the Arab Spring Qatar remained the most active participant in the ongoing geopolitical transformation in the Arab world. Yet it was the combination of Qatar’s leading role in the revolutions, the apparent US pivot away from the region, advent of civil wars in Syria, Libya, and later Yemen, success of Islamist parties in Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt and sustained protests in Bahrain that all heightened the Saudi sense of vulnerability. The ruling elite in Riyadh viewed Doha, as not only a full member of the enemy camp, but also the state that was doing the most to elevate any previous existential threat to the Saudi kingdom posed by political Islam into a veritable, more imminent threat.