And the United States tracked Imad Mughniya, author of the truck bombing of the US Marines in Lebanon until he was killed. And US Seals blew away Somali pirates. Does that make us a country, like the former Soviet Union and Putin’s Russia, that reacts to every insult by assassinating someone? My bet is that nothing will happen in Qatar. The Russians would have much to lose (in the Caucasus for one)by a retaliation in a state where both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Wahhabi movements are powerful and dislike for Russia is tangible.
We have more scruples than they do. If we were the Soviet Union, there would be no one languishing in Gitmo—they would be languishing in what Nikita Khrushchev called “the cold Soviet ground.”
The Russians bumped off a Chechen raghead in Qatar a few years ago. When the Qataris arrested a couple of Russian agents for it, the Russians arrested a bunch of Qatari athletes. The Qataris for all their bravado are a featherweight in the region and everyone knows that.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3852697.stm
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/03/02/2003100835