The most recent Arab summit took place in Doha, Qatar on March 30 and 31 of this year. According to the Jerusalem Post, it was scheduled to run two days, but due to the lack of progress, it stopped after one day (a not uncommon occurrence at Arab summits).
While the fact that an Arab summit occurred in itself does not seem newsworthy, as these are now yearly events, what occured was. For one, it seems to have escaped notice, with little international press attention. For example, while in the past the Arab summit would have received at least some attention in the premier sections of the Israeli press, it even seemed to slip by their watch. Hence, it almost seems as though it didn’t occur.
The proceedings were far from eventful, as no progress or concensus was made the major issues of Arab politics: Palestinian reconciliation, as Hamas was not allowed to attend; any progress in the Arab-Israeli dispute, as the participants issued a typical pithy statement endorsing the 2002 Saudi peace plan, calling for the right of return and a stop to harming the holy places of Islam and Christianity; and the threat from Iran, which poses a very real threat to the Arab world, especially as Iranian proxies Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas threaten to destabilize the region. The only point in which the participants were in agreement was an endorsement of Sudanese president Omar al Bashir against the accusation of war crimes and genocide in Darfur.
Predictably, the Arab press was less than kind toward the participants. Here are a few samplings of their commentary:
- An editorial “Concord to Bicker” written in the Egyptian paper Al-Ahram Weekly
- A cartoon run in the Jordanian daily al-Dustour”commenting” upon the summit
- An editorial by the director of the al-Arabiya TV station stating that it is time to end Arab summits altogether
- Another editorial by the editor of Al-Sharq al-Awsat, who claims that the problem isn’t that Arab leaders don’t meet, it’s that they do
NOTE: the last two links are in Arabic. Thanks to Marc Lynch of Foreign Policy for a quick synopsis of the articles. My translation is much too lengthy to put here.
Thus, it seems as though the Arab world is stuck spinning its wheels, so to speak. Even when faced with an existential threat in Iran, who has threatened to completely destabilize the region, and has now successfully penetrated it (unlike in the 1980s when it was operating alone against Iraq, even when it was in alliance with Syria), the Arab heads of state cannot put aside their differences and agree upon a common plan of action to meet this threat. Thus, it seems as though the Arabs have been eclipsed in the region by the Iranians and their proxies. Instead of being the driving force behind political developments in the region, the Arabs cannot stop squabbling and face those threats to themselves. Instead of dictating the development of the region, they are being driven by others.
