America First? Hegseth Announces Qatar To Build Air Force Facility Deep In US Heartland

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth just over a week ago delivered his America First rah-rah higher-military-standards and end-of-wokeness speech to some 800 Generals and Admirals gathered at Quantico. That’s all well and good – and a very welcome and refreshing break from the Biden era… but now he pivots to allowing the Gulf Arab country of Qatar to establish a foreign base in the heart of the United States(!?)…

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday announced a finalized agreement that will allow the Qatari Emiri Air Force to build a facility at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho,” writes CBS on Friday based on the Pentagon announcement.

Until now, there is no foreign military base on American soil – only “joint training programs” or facilities where foreign pilots might have a semi-permanent presence under a US training program.

But the first to build one will be an Arab Gulf Sunni Monarchy?

Hegseth proclaimed at a signing ceremony alongside Qatari Minister of Defense Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at the Pentagon that he is “proud that today we’re signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emiri Air Force Facility at the Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho.”

So it will be a permanent “Qatari Facility” with the broader Mountain Home Air Base, it appears. A key question remains: will the Qataris be able to treat it as sovereign Qatari soil? 

“The location will host a contingent of Qatari F-15′s and pilots to enhance our combined training, increase lethality, interoperability, it’s just another example of our partnership,” Hegseth described. “And I hope you know, your excellency, that you can count on us.”

“You have been a core part of what has unfolded in Gaza, a historic moment,” Hegseth added. ”We’re grateful for the strong partnership that we have, the way you support our troops at Al Udeid, Your Excellency, the line of communication we’ve had together.” The US itself has long had a major airbase outside of Doha, which has actually protected Qatar at times from Iranian missiles.

Again, this seems more than just the typical shared training programs among allies, as the Qataris themselves will build the new facility.

All of this follows President Trump very recently signing an executive order ”assuring the security of the state of Qatar.” As we described, it provides Article 5-like guarantees, in which an attack on Qatar is considered a threat to the security of the US. It was meant as a US “sorry” for allowing the Israelis to attack Doha, in the strike which took out five Hamas leaders and a Qatari security guard.

The gap between how the pro-Israel MAGA faction talks about Qatar, and Trump’s treatment of Qatar, could not be wider.

That faction constantly depicts Qatar as an evil terror regime infiltrating US institutions.

Meanwhile, Trump loves Qatar, heaps praise on it, and now this: https://t.co/V6ywIjdnkW

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 10, 2025

As for US-Qatar relations, they were deepened especially during the decade-plus long war of regime change against Assad. Qatar even hosted FSA and jihadi training camps, reportedly run by the CIA and likely American special forces. Ultimately, the US-Gulf-Israel axis is still strong, despite the Gaza war, which is also what the recent defense pact demonstrates. Some analysts are saying it further prepares the US-Gulf axis for the next round of fighting with Iran.

As for this new Qatari Air Force facility, we wonder what ordinary red-blooded Idahoans think of this permanent Arab military presence in their own backyard.