\u201cIt\u2019s still unfolding,\u201d University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus said Monday morning, after the American attack on Iran but prior to Iran\u2019s missile strike in Qatar. \u201cIt certainly marks a demarcation point for President Trump, with respect to his political globetrotting. Exactly how that plays out, we don\u2019t know. <\/p>\n
“There\u2019s a real risk in confronting Iran in this way, not just from a foreign policy international security point of view but also from a domestic political point of view, not just from Democrats but also from Republicans who are worried this will drag the U.S. into another endless war.\u201d <\/p>\n
But Trump congratulated himself Monday night as he announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel, bringing an official end to what he\u2019s calling \u201cthe 12-day war.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a war that could have gone on for years, and destroyed the entire Middle East, but it didn’t, and never will!\u201d Trump wrote on X. Then reports came that Iran and Israel were ignoring the ceasefire and, as Rottinghaus says, the situation is still unfolding. <\/p>\n
More than 500 engineering students resumed classes at the Texas A&M Qatar campus on Wednesday after the U.S. Embassy there issued a shelter-in-place alert<\/a> Monday afternoon and shut down classes Tuesday. <\/p>\n Davis has fond memories of living in Doha with her husband, who served as the chief information officer for Qatar\u2019s Texas A&M campus, and their four children, who ranged in age from 6 to 13 when they moved to Qatar and are now all in their 20s. <\/p>\n
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A sign in Doha advertises a camel underpass.<\/p>\n
Photo by Dana Davis
<\/p>\n \n She said she expected Iran would retaliate. \u201cThey have to save face,\u201d she said. They have to be the last one to do anything. In fact I told my sister Iran was going to do something, even if it was small. They don\u2019t want to appear weak to their people.\u201d<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t look like Iran intended to harm Americans or anyone else, she added. <\/p>\n \u201cQatar has close ties to Iran,\u201d she said. \u201cThey share the second-largest gas reserve in the world under the Arabian Sea. We always called it the Persian Gulf from the U.S. side, but the Persian Gulf is the ancient name for Iran. On the Qatar side, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, they all call it the Arabian Sea. They don\u2019t want to call it by Iran\u2019s name. They want to have their own name for it.\u201d <\/p>\n
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Dana and Kevin Davis rode camels on a desert safari.<\/p>\n
Photo by Dana Davis
<\/p>\n \n On Monday when the missiles hit Qatar, Davis said her phone lit up with messages. <\/p>\n \u201cThey said they heard it and they felt it,\u201d Davis said of her former neighbors. \u201cThey felt the shaking and their windows were rattling with the explosion. They didn\u2019t see it, they just felt it. We were not too far from the Al Udeid base that was the target. We lived much closer to a smaller base where Afghan refugees are held until they are fully vetted before going into the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n Davis said she takes comfort in knowing that the people of Qatar weren\u2019t being targeted. The Al Udeid base is somewhat isolated in the desert southwest of Doha, she said. <\/p>\n \u201cI never felt unsafe [in Qatar], even at night by myself,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are places I wouldn\u2019t go here in the U.S. by myself at night. However, I think because of this, it\u2019s kind of shaken that sense of security. One of my American friends there \u2014 she happens to be Muslim \u2014 she said her kids are really shaken up. I have other friends who are planning to fly out and come to the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesman for Houston\u2019s Iranian Cultural Foundation said Tuesday that the nonprofit is focused strictly on Iranian culture.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have no political or religious affiliations or activities, nor do we comment on world events as it pertains to Iran,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Jon Buchanan, who headed up registration at the Qatar campus for three years and returned to College Station in January, echoed a similar sentiment. Buchanan and his wife Amy have three sons who are now 14, 12 and 6. <\/p>\n \u201cWe looked at each other many, many times and said we feel much safer [in Qatar] than we do in the U.S.,\u201d Buchanan said. \u201cAfter we got there, the school shooting<\/a> happened in Uvalde. When that happened, we were like, wow, nothing like that will ever happen in Qatar. There were times like that, when we were thankful we were there and not in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the last couple of days, Buchanan said he\u2019s talked to several friends in Doha. <\/p>\n \u201cFor the most part, they\u2019ve said it was kinda scary but that Iran notified the military there that they were going to send the missiles,\u201d he said. \u201cThey weren\u2019t super, super scared. It was loud. It sounded like thunder. I don\u2019t know how we would have felt if we were there, but I can tell you that during the time we were there, we felt incredibly safe.\u201d <\/p>\n
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Kevin Davis goes sand surfing in Qatar.<\/p>\n
Photo by Dana Davis
<\/p>\n \n Both Davis and Buchanan, who were next door neighbors when they lived on a compound in Doha, said the Qatari people pride themselves on being negotiators who resolve conflict. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re kind of like the Switzerland of the Middle East in that they try to stay on the good side of their neighbors,\u201d Davis said. <\/p>\n Buchanan agreed that the Qatari government likes to facilitate peace talks and be known as friendly to surrounding countries. <\/p>\n \u201cTo hear that Iran actually launched missiles, even though it was at a U.S. air base in Qatar, I was really shocked that they did that,\u201d he said. \u201cI never would have thought that would have happened. I don\u2019t think there was ever any real danger, but the last few hours have been pretty tense. Who knows what\u2019s going on and who knows what\u2019s going to happen?\u201d <\/p>\n Both Davis and Buchanan said Qatar was a welcoming place for young families. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was a great experience because we got to meet people from all different cultures,\u201d Davis said. \u201cOnly about 20 percent of the population is Qatari so we got to meet people from all over the world.\u201d <\/p>\n About 62 percent of those enrolled at the Texas A&M campus are Qatari and about half of the engineering students are female, an unusually high number in an engineering program, Davis said. The university, which has offered undergraduate degrees in chemical, electrical, mechanical, and petroleum engineering since 2003, is slated to close by 2028, officials announced last year. <\/p>\n Its intent when the university opened was to “import elite higher education from the United States to Doha using the oil and natural-gas riches of the tiny Persian Gulf nation.\u201d A Qatari university will take over the engineering courses but A&M, which was the largest and most successful university there, will no longer have a presence there, Davis said.<\/p>\n That means it\u2019s likely that the presence of Americans in Doha may also decline. Davis said she wouldn\u2019t live there again but she\u2019d definitely visit in the cooler months (it\u2019s probably about 115 degrees in Doha this week, she said). <\/p>\n A direct flight from Houston to Doha is about 14 hours, and once there, the Davises were able to buy a car and do routine tasks such as grocery shopping, although most of the stores are in large, opulent indoor malls, she said. <\/p>\n \u201cArabic was the official language but in business they used English,\u201d Davis said. \u201cThere were people who couldn\u2019t speak English but it hindered them in their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n The Buchanan kids and the younger Davis kids went to the American School of Doha, which was a diverse cultural experience, Buchanan said. <\/p>\n \u201cThere were 80 different countries represented in the student body there,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was really cool to see our boys learn how to interact and make friends with people who look different than them and have different beliefs from them. We lived in, like, a compound that was very conducive to all of our boys making good friends and being outside all the time, swimming and playing games and having fun. It was cool.\u201d <\/p>\n
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A man taught the Buchanan boys to fish at the beach on the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n
Photo by Jon Buchanan
<\/p>\n \n Americans in Qatar occasionally had to fact-check some of their new friends who had a skewed perception of the United States, Davis said. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s much more modern than people expect,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s an affluent country. They have lots of stereotypes of America based on what they\u2019ve seen in the movies. They think we\u2019re very immoral. For the Muslim families, they think we are a Christian nation but we all behave like Hollywood. We had to explain to them that our government isn\u2019t tied to religion like it is in the Middle East.\u201d <\/p>\n Many Qatari people will make special trips to the United States to give birth so their children can be American citizens, she added. <\/p>\n \u201cThey like the freedoms and the opportunities that we have here,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/camel_underpass.webp\")
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