It was all smiles in the Qatari capital, Doha, when leaders of the Gulf Co-operation Council met on December 9th. Unusually, the annual summit of the six-member club of Arab oil monarchies packed more politics than pageantry. It marked the official healing of a deep rift between Qatar and its neighbours. More accurately, it confirmed the small but immensely rich host nation's retreat, under sustained pressure, from an activist foreign policy its neighbours viewed not only as irksome but as downright subversive.
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