Editor�s
Note:
The Arab League Summit is set for March 29-30, 2008 in
Damascus Syria. Today we are pleased to share several essays
published through bitterlemons-international.org, a forum for
sharing perspectives on Middle East developments.
Bitterlemons
"aspires to engender greater understanding about the
Middle East region and open a new common space for world
thinkers and political leaders to present their viewpoints and
initiatives on the region."
Additional materials from SUSRIS and related resources will be
posted to our new
SUSRIS Special Section
addressing next week's summit.
Everyone can brag, nothing will be done
Rana Sabbagh-Gargour
The troubled Arab League summit is finally going ahead in
Syria later this month. But the wrangling between Saudi Arabia
and Syria over Lebanon that preceded the summit is likely to
continue after the meeting as the rift between the pro and
anti-western Arab states over Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine
deepens.
The
divisions fall between two axes: the Iranian-led hardliners
grouping Syria, local allies Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas in
Palestine on the one hand, and the so-called "Arab
moderates" or allies of Washington, on the other side.
Neither front is willing to lose the battle.
"The Arabs have all lost control over their region and
its political crises," a senior Jordanian official told
this writer. "The decision is no longer in our hands:
some are taking the cue from Iran, others are taking it from
America.. ..A solution for these interconnected crises will
continue to stagger, until America and Iran settle their
differences over Tehran's nuclear file and re-draw the map of
the new Middle East, exactly like World War I victors Britain
and France divided the remains of the Ottoman Empire into
spheres of influence."
The run up to the summit has been dramatic -- reflecting an
ongoing battle among most Arabs against Iran's growing
influence in the region. For weeks, regional political
heavyweight Riyadh insisted it would boycott the March 29-30
summit if Damascus does not facilitate the election of a new
Lebanese president by then. Not all the six-nation Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) were on board.
Egypt opted for another approach: Arabs should take part in
the summit and spell out what Arabs require from Syria.
"You go to a summit to solve your problems instead of
insisting to settle them in advance. You give Syria the 'Arab
option' instead of pushing it further into Iran's lap,"
said an Egyptian diplomat. "You bluntly tell Syria it
needs to facilitate the election of Lebanon's president, to
support Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the peace
process and to ensure national reconciliation by stopping
Hamas' spoiling role," he said. "And you ask it to
help stabilize Iraq, where Iran now has the upper hand."
Jordan, which mended fences with Syria in November after a
four year hiatus, opted for a middle ground: maintaining close
political coordination with Cairo and Riyadh while trying but
failing to ease Saudi-Syrian tension. This balancing act,
however, proved difficult. Riyadh, Amman's key Arab bankroller
and strategic political ally, and Washington got
sensitive.
Syria, for its part, did not show any signs it would be
willing to concede on Lebanon for the sake of holding a
high-level Arab summit that is not expected to further its
strategic interests. The noise coming out of Damascus was
defiant; the summit would be convened on time with
"whoever attends", to gain some of the prestige it
is aching for to counter US isolation and western pressure on
its ruling elite in connection with a UN tribunal
investigating the assassination of former Lebanese prime
minister Rafiq Hariri.
The trial will start in June, leading the regime and its ally
Hizballah to use brinkmanship and a tacit threat of civil war
as a means of destabilizing the pro-US government.
Saudi Arabia then tried another diplomatic tactic. It lobbied
for the convening of an eight-way meeting with Egypt, Jordan
and its GCC allies to demand a summit delay or change of venue
to Egypt, to embarrass Syria over Lebanon. In parallel,
Washington pressured its Arab allies to snub the Syria summit.
But the ensuing Israeli military offensive in Gaza inflamed
Arab public anger and further isolated moderate voices pushing
for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians
under the Arab peace initiative re-launched at the 2007 Arab
League summit in Riyadh.
Once again, Syria stole the show, prodding hundreds of
thousands to march through the capital's streets while Arab
moderates issued shy condemnations. Syrian media orchestrated
an aggressive campaign equating the latest killings in Gaza to
the Nazi-run Holocaust. An embarrassed Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas briefly called off peace talks with Israel
before Egypt brokered an informal truce between Hamas and
Israel.
Days into March, Arab diplomacy finally saved the day. Arab
foreign ministers held marathon talks in Egypt, and Saudi
Arabia announced it would attend the Damascus summit. Together
with Egypt and Jordan, Riyadh will send low-level
representation, at ambassadorial or ministerial level. This is
a sufficient rebuke to the Syrian regime while bringing less
harm to the already diminished Arab League.
Syria accepted to send an invitation to Lebanon, but said it
would leave it up to the country's feuding politicians to
decide who will lead the delegation to the summit if no
president is elected by March 25.
"The Arab ritual of holding a regular summit has been
secured," said an Arab official. "Once again,
however, Arabs will fail to agree on anything major, opting
for flexible, minimum consensus and meaningless resolutions to
take back home."
Syria will use the summit to embarrass Washington's allies. It
has invited Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki to
attend the summit's opening. Khaled Mishaal, the
Damascus-based political leader of Hamas, and a rival of
President Abbas, is likely to sit next to Mottaki. President
Bashar Assad will play the "Palestinian card" and
use other tactics to counter Riyadh's rebuke over Lebanon,
where the presidential impasse is likely to continue for
months.
Damascus and a few low-profile Arab supporters will insist on
reviewing the failed peace process, including pushing for
other alternatives such as retreating from the Arab peace
initiative because of Israel's continued building of West Bank
settlements, a practice the US-mediated Annapolis accord was
supposed to forbid. Moderate Arabs will fight back. They will
push to stabilize the situation in Gaza. And in the absence of
other Arab strategic alternatives to peace, they will focus on
the continuation of Palestinian-Israeli talks to secure a
peace deal before the end of US President George Bush's term
in office.
As a compromise, the summit will form a ministerial committee
to monitor the process and to reconsider future options within
a set period of time if the talks go nowhere.
"Everyone will leave Damascus with something to brag
about. The biggest losers will be Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine
while post-summit Arab political intrigue and bickering will
continue well into the next Arab League summit," said an
Arab official.
- Published 20/3/2008 � bitterlemons-international.org
[Reprinted with permission of "bitterlemons"]
Edition 12 Volume 6 - March 20, 2008
Rana Sabbagh-Gargour is an independent journalist and former chief editor of The Jordan Times.
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