AP

VISITORS to Qatar tend to share the same bafflement that Hosni Mubarak expressed when shown the Al Jazeera satellite channel’s news studio in the Qatari capital, Doha. “All that noise from this little matchbox?”, Egypt’s then strongman grumbled, amazed that the station, paid for by Qatar’s rulers, could stir popular passions and big trouble for governments from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic.