US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is opening the Henry Kissinger Play Book in an effort to end the rift between Qatar and its fellow-Arab nations Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Egypt. The new SecState will use shuttle diplomacy to mediate the crisis that began when the latter nations accused Qatar of supporting terrorism and put teeth into the charge by implementing an embargo, cutting off access to their respective nations by their nationals or transportation companies, whether by land, air or maritime. Tillerson will be bouncing between the nations involved through at least Thursday. His goals are modest: at this point, he merely wants to bring the parties to the table. If that happens, Tillerson believes he can improve on the Kuwaiti strategy and find an alternative to the list of 13 demands that the Saudi-led group presented to Qatar when the feud began. That list includes banning Al-Jazeera, the Qatari network with a world-wide presence; banning the Muslim Brotherhood; throw out Turkish troops stationed in Qatar; and limit interaction with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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