The Summit of "Whoever Attends"
Elias Harfoush Al-Hayat - 28/03/08//
Damascus believes that the Arab Summit that it hosts tomorrow has succeeded, even before it is kicked off and decisions are taken.
In the view of the Syrian leadership, the mere holding of the summit is a victory in and of itself, a victory over the American efforts to abort it, as put it the Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem. However, the minister reassured the public that despite these efforts, the US will have no role in any endorsement of the summit agenda, or in the decisions that will be taken.
Of course, the Syrian minister is not referring specifically to America. The US is not a member of the Arab League, and President George Bush has not been invited to the summit. However, the thinking of the Syrian leadership, as expressed by its diplomatic minister, is based on the idea that Arab leaders who stay away from the summit, whom Syria labels as America's allies in the region, are the ones who opted with this absence to cause the summit's failure, to serve American objectives - but Damascus scored victory against them and decided to convene the summit with "whoever attends."
This is, simply, how Damascus interpreted the absence of King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah II of Jordan, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, and others. With their absence, they are sending a message of protest against the Syrian approach to the region's crises. An approach that offers no positive contributions to arrive at solutions. In other words, the Syrian leadership has failed to respond to Saudi and Egyptian efforts to help the summit become a success, particularly during the preparatory phase. And now, it has chosen to label the states who object to this approach as serving American objectives and interests, instead of attributing their efforts to a desire (by Riyadh, Cairo and other capitals) to set down sound bases for a summit that will help solve Arab crises instead of compounding them further.
Facilitating the solution to the Lebanon issue would have been ideal in this regard. It could have helped create opportunities for the success of the summit. And why not, it could have paved the way for the participation of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and other countries. Yet, Damascus did not provide this opportunity and stuck to its positions, at times evading its responsibility and casting it instead on its allies in Lebanon (though everyone knows the nature of this alliance and who calls the shots), and at others blaming Saudi Arabia for the failure. It has even been urging Saudi Arabia to put pressure on its allies, even though they have been totally responsive to the Arab initiative to defuse the crisis. Perhaps the Arab League Secretary General, who will attend the Summit, can say a few words about this issue, only if Damascus deems that the Lebanon crisis deserves to be debated during this summit.
However, the solution for Lebanon will not be the only item that is present, and absent, at the Damascus Summit. The Palestinian crisis, with all of its complications, is another such item. One of the sides to the dispute will be sitting in the seat of Palestine at the summit, but the other will be sitting not far away, in the Syrian capital. Damascus could have contributed to the solution by using its well-known influence, instead of casting this responsibility onto Yemen, and its positive efforts, which run up against the limits of its influence in the Palestinian arena.
Even the Arab Peace Initiative, which is now caught between a group that continues to adhere to it and another that calls for reviewing the offer, might not see an actual discussion of its fate. This is because of the absence of King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, who was behind its launch and then acceptance at the Beirut Arab Summit of 2002. It is not natural or logical for the reservations by Damascus and its allies about the initiative to be discussed during the King's absence from the summit.
However, it appears that the no-shows do not bother Damascus. If they did, Damascus would have sought to avoid these absences. Syria has used the slogan "Summit of Joint Arab Action," which is sufficient to highlight how lightly it treats the political weight of the no-shows to the summit and their influence in Arab action. How can Arab action be "joint" when some of its leading rulers are not acting "jointly" by attending the gathering?
Damascus is concerned with ensuring that the American "virus," as Syrian newspapers have described it with their customary politeness, remains distant from the summit. This, in their view, is the element of the summit's success. There is no importance given to those leaders who are absent and have no voice, since they have been already described as enemies of Arab interests, which are sponsored so competently by Damascus!
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