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Article snippet: WASHINGTON — President Trump scrambled American diplomacy on two fronts on Friday, delivering a stinging rebuke of Qatar at the very moment his secretary of state was trying to mend fences in the Persian Gulf, while at the same time reaffirming support for NATO two weeks after he had declined to do so. Unpredictable as always, Mr. Trump’s comments cut in two directions: He appeared to undermine Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, who has thrown himself into an effort to mediate a resolution to the bitter dispute between Qatar and several of its neighbors, chiefly Saudi Arabia. But he also soothed NATO allies by explicitly reaffirming Article 5, the clause that commits members to defend any ally under attack. Mr. Trump conspicuously avoided making that pledge at a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels two weeks ago, opening a rift with allies that widened after he pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord. Yet the pattern of sudden reversals in the Trump administration’s diplomacy was most pronounced in the Middle East. On Friday afternoon, Mr. Tillerson called for a “calm and thoughtful dialogue” to resolve the deepening dispute among Sunni Muslim states in the Persian Gulf. Barely an hour later, Mr. Trump’s comments were anything but that. He accused Qatar of being a “funder of terror at a very high level” and demanded that the tiny, energy-rich nation cut off that money flow to rejoin the circle of responsible nations. “We had a decision to m... Link to the full article to read more