Saturday, March 29, 2008

The Arab League Meeting in Damascus

The 22-member Arab League currently meeting in Damascus once again highlights the deep divisions within the Arab world. There are essentially two main groups, the Sunni "moderate" States, including Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and most of the Maghreb (North African states Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia) and the Gulf States (Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman) and the extremist or "rejectionist" states, including Syria, Libya, Yemen and Sudan. They are called "rejectionist" because they reject any compromise or peace negotiations with Israel.
However, Lebanon did not attend the Syrian-hosted conference in Damascus because it has no President. The election of a new "compromise" President to replace the previous pro-Syrian President Lahoud has been blocked for nearly a year by Hizbollah and anti-Syrian delegates to the National Assembly, and this is definitely under Syrian orders (as well as the many murders by car bomb of anti-Syrian leaders). Also, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia and half the delegations sent low level emissaries to the Conference in place of the usual Heads of State and/or FMs in order to express their displeasure with the Syrian regime. Iran was represented by its FM as an observor, essentially in place of the leading "moderates." This shows the split in the Arab world between pro- and anti-Iranian groupings.
Although the Sunnis strongly oppose the Shia, which split from them over the succession to Mohammed soon after his death, nevertheless, several nominally Sunni States support Shia Iran. Thus, while Syria is nominally Sunni, first it is ruled by the Assads who are members of the Awalekite minority (17%) that control the army and identify with the Shia, and second they don't recognize the existence of the Lebanese State, considering it part of Greater Syria (as Iraq considered Kuwait part of Greater Iraq under Saddam Hussein), and use the Shia Hizbollah as a surrogate in Lebanon. The Government of Iraq is currently also involved in a war with Shia extremist forces, most notably the so-called Mahdi Army of Muktader al-Sadr in Basra.
Although Libya is on the list of "rejectionist" States, it has shown some moderation since Qaddafi decided to deal with the West several years ago and exposed his secret nuclear weapons program. Also, Yemen and Sudan, although nominally extremist have also shown some compromise in dealing with the US.
A quick count shows more Arab states in the "moderate" or "pragmatic" corner than the extremists and this is reflected in the fact that although before the Conference started Syria announced that they would reconsider the so-called "Arab Peace Plan," that had ben proposed by Saudi Arabia and had been adopted by the Arab League, actually once the Conference began they re-endorsed this Plan, indicating a tendency towards moderation. It would be impossible for Israel to accept this Plan as is (calling for complete Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines, the return of the Arab refugees, and the dismantling of all settlements), but nevertheless it represents a move in the right direction away from the total rejection of Israel by all Arab States that used to be the rule at Arab League meetings.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home