The weakest Arab summit with the absence of Syria

The Arab citizen, when hearing the news of holding the summit on Thursday morning on the twenty-ninth of March, recalls the courageous Syrian position on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the place where the summit is held. Syria also called for resistance, and its foreign minister at that time Farouq al-Shara described this American behavior as piracy and aggression and not as claimed by the administration of Bush the son in that period, which said that the invasion is aiming at freeing Iraq from dictatorship, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction.
In fact, we cannot really say that the summit that is being held with a low Arab participation is an Arab right as long as Syria was excluded from attending it and as long as the Syrian influence was absent and was thus unable to practice its known role.

There are several negative factors emptying this summit of any content or meaning, but the most important factor is the Syrian absence from a summit that its most important topics that are to be discussed as they say are the Syrian crisis and the ways of providing a solution by the Arab leaders so that to emerge from the stalemate reached due to this crisis.

The terrorist acts and bombings that happened and might be repeated on the eve of the summit and during it form also a further important factor in puzzling the Arab official position of the participants. All the talk we are hearing from Iraqi officials about security measures and creating adequate conditions for holding the summit come in the framework of searching for the legitimacy that the Iraqi leadership is missing. This leadership was left by the U.S. invasion after its withdrawal from Iraq or in other words during its military presence as an occupier in the land and sky of Iraq.

The agenda of the Arab summit, as we know it from statements made by Iraqi leaders and by the pillars of the Arab League, includes a series of Arab political and economic issues, including the Palestinian cause, the Egyptian, Tunisian, and Libyan affairs, and the cooperation between the Arab states, or what we call the joint Arab action. However, the most important issue that is to be discussed by this summit (if we are to call it a summit) is the Syrian crisis and searching for a solution to the prevailing violence and the continuous confrontations between the state and its adversaries. Hence, is the new international situation that is biased these days for a peaceful solution going to win in this summit or the calls for arming the opposition and overthrowing the regime are going to do so? The available indicators and the Arab reality do not predict the success of the summit in taking any serious attitude about the Syrian problem. This comes because the Arab League and some Arab leaders, especially the petroleum related ones, as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have played a central role in giving priority to the boycott and the clashes with the Syrian leadership and government, what made both the League and Summit lose the ability of playing the role of a mediator or even a brethren regarding what is going on in Syria. What is worse, the institution of the Arab League, which did not have any positive role in its movement but only with the presence of the Syrian state, has accredited the foreign interference, and summoned the Security Council as it did in Libya, with a key difference represented in the fact that China and Russia rejected this reasoning and stopped two resolutions were about to pave the way for the invasion of Syria by the NATO and thus repeating the Libyan form.

In the contemporary Arab history, and even the old one, we will find all the evidences on the mistake of excluding Syria in any Arab meeting addressing the Arab issues or anything that shall affect the Arab national security. Perhaps, what we are seeing of the effects of the Arab revolts and the ongoing American-Western interventions in their affairs being supported by an Arab reactionary gives necessity to the presence of Syria, despite all the omens and problems found therein that make the priority to its attendance an objective thing even regarding the conflict taking place in and against it.

From now until holding the summit in Baghdad, the questions of the future and the destiny will continue to exist in the minds of the people and in the Arab street; these questions are more important than holding the summit itself. It is noteworthy that there is an absence of media focus on this summit, and this should have a logical explanation. Perhaps, we can find the explanation in the results of many opinion polls carried out about the possibility of the success of the summit, counting the attendance and the active decisions. As a result, we found that the overwhelming proportion of views answered negatively, and the Arab citizen is finding no answers in this summit to questions relating to issues of concern.

The most important thing we are hearing from the Arab public opinion about the positions of the Arab summit is the question about the seriousness of the Arab countries and their leaders concerning the fact of preserving the interests of the nation and restoring its rights and dignity, and whether we are going to see the same harassment and power in the face of the enemies of the nation as the case is against Syria, its government, and leadership?

The Arab summit is being held in the presence of presidents, kings, and princes or their representatives on the eve of the anniversary of the Earth Day and the world march of Jerusalem. Thus, would this remind them of what they have to do? Would those leaders, the present and absent ones, lower their heads before the Zionist enemy and its American ally, at the time when some of them are pouncing Syria through behaviors, decisions, and alliances that increase the suffering of the Syrian people and warn of dire consequences that are to be faced by the region and the world?

It was better for a summit looking for a solution to the Syrian crisis to call the Syrian leadership to attend, and this does not come in order to support this leadership as some might imagine, but in order to pressure it and to hear its view point, only if they were honest. However, they do not want an equitable solution to the problem that might preserve Syria and protect it from the civil war and division, and that is why they closed their ears unwilling to hear the perspective of the Syrian state and government, and listened only to another party that is not even an Arab one. As a result, the crisis was increasingly complicated, the Arab joint action was marginalized, and the League and summits are reposing and this is likely going to last long.