If the locals wanted people here to speak Arabic and not English, they wouldn't have imported the majority of their service staff from Asia, they would have hired the many unemployed Arabs from around the region.

Don't blame the Filipina working at MacDonalds that the Arabic guy is having trouble ordering. Blame the company that hired her.

And as many others point out above, most expats have no regular contact with Qataris, so who would we speak Arabic to? Other expats?

In my typical day I don't encounter anyone that speaks Arabic as their first language.

I'd be better off learning Hindi or Tagalog than Arabic.