HE WAS living proof that some people have all the luck. During the 18-year reign of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, which ended last year, Qatar’s population quadrupled. Its GDP grew sixfold to $200 billion, making its 2m-odd people the richest per person on Earth. The emirate’s Al Jazeera satellite channel, though it enraged many, was the most influential in the region. Its brash promotion of revolution with a Muslim Brother flavour looked prescient as friendly new Islamist governments sprouted in the Arab spring. Even the emir’s bid to bring the world’s biggest sporting event to his sweltering little state came off when in 2010 the international football body, FIFA, picked Qatar to hold the World Cup in 2022.

Sheikh Hamad quit when he was ahead, abruptly abdicating last June in favour of his son Tamim, now 34. Poor fellow. Barely a week into his reign Egypt’s army tossed out the Muslim Brotherhood government that Qatar had boosted to the tune of $8 billion. Neighbours in the Gulf, led by the looming giant next door, Saudi Arabia, began to squeeze the upstart emirate. Angered by Qatar’s dabbling in revolution, its hosting of exiled dissidents and by the leaking of old tapes said to capture top Qatari officials saying rude things about the Saudis, they withdrew ambassadors and threatened to shut their air space to Qatar.

The football deal went sour, too. Noisy publicity over the giant building works it entails brought scrutiny of labour practices in the emirate, where foreign workers, many of them ill paid, harshly treated and denied basic rights, massively outnumber its 280,000 privileged citizens. In February the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation described Qatar as a “slave state”. To make things worse, recent reports in the British press elaborated on rumbling rumours of bribery in FIFA’s award of the football tournament. The scandal has put the emirate’s winning bid in doubt (see article).

Withdrawal of the World Cup would not hurt Qatar that much. Of the $200 billion in big infrastructure projects planned or under way, only a fraction are sports facilities; construction of eight new stadiums has not yet started. And Sheikh Tamim’s people are not complaining. Considering that Qatar’s annual energy exports amount to nearly $500,000 per citizen, they are doing quite nicely, thank you.

The young emir can thank his father for another useful legacy. When Saudi Arabia turfed out American troops following the Gulf war of 1991, Qatar invited them in. The presence of a vast American air base not far from Doha, Qatar’s capital, provides good insurance against pushy neighbours. Qatar also helped mediate a recent prisoner swap which freed a captive American soldier in exchange for five senior members of the Afghan Taliban (see Lexington).

Still, the bad press and the ire of brother Arabs has put Qatar in an uncomfortable position. Sheikh Tamim had already retreated diplomatically, reassuring his neighbours and toning down Al Jazeera. Qatar may also be quietly backing away from some of its less savoury clients, including jihadist groups in Syria. But he may yet have to eat a little more humble pie.