Posted on 03/31/2006 12:40:39 AM PST by Cornpone
How morbidly revealing it was that Arab leaders meeting in Khartoum on Tuesday could agree to little of consequence, even as they were hosted by a regime that has efficiently engineered the slaughter and wretchedness of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Darfur. Only in repression, it seems, are the Arab states truly resourceful; in diplomacy, however, it is their cowardice and sterility that consistently prevail.
The face-off over the Lebanese resistance between President Emile Lahoud and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora during a closed session at the summit was awkward, but also bracing, coming after the parliamentary majority sent a letter to the Arab League questioning the president's legitimacy. Both episodes were rare signs of democracy in a venue where bigoted dinosaurs mingle with tyrannical mummies. Khartoum reaffirmed that, all things remaining constant, the Arab states are heading toward self-inflicted political marginalization in the coming years.
Lebanese-Syrian relations provide a good case study of Arab thinking. It has become apparent that the coagulating Arab consensus today is that Syrian President Bashar Assad should survive politically, regardless of his regime's probable involvement in the assassination of Rafik Hariri. Several months ago, a senior Arab leader privately insinuated to a prominent Lebanese politician that the page had to be turned on Hariri. Today, both Egypt and Saudi Arabia are taking unambiguous positions in support of Assad, and are avoiding putting pressure on Syria even where this can be done, for example in drawing Lebanese-Syrian boundaries in the Shebaa Farms area and in approving Lahoud's ouster.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is nervous that if Assad were to fall, Islamists would inherit Syria. Given that Mubarak's own Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood, did especially well in last year's parliamentary elections, and that Hamas won a subsequent majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council, the Egyptian leader sees beards everywhere, and that worries him. He also knows that if Assad tumbles, as a leader who inherited his post from his father, his failure would give considerable sustenance to Mubarak's political foes who oppose the president's plans to bring his son, Gamal, to power.
The Saudis have complex calculations of their own. Like the Egyptians, they don't like to see an Arab leader forcibly removed from office, since that may give ideas to their own opponents. But the Saudis are worried, too, about how the Sunni-Shiite rift in Iraq may affect communal relations in the kingdom, particularly in the oil-rich Eastern Province where there is a substantial Shiite population. Assad's downfall, they fear, would provoke Sunni-Shiite tension in Lebanon, which, combined with the tension in Iraq, may destabilize the region and have serious repercussions in Saudi Arabia. Riyadh's sectarian sensitivities also explain why it won't confront the Iranians over Syria or Hizbullah. Finally, the Saudis are aware that a doomed Assad might turn Sunni Islamists against them in a retaliatory punch before dropping out of sight. http://www.dailystar.com.lb
The Egyptian and Saudi positions on Assad are, therefore, justifiable from the perspective of traditional Arab "realist" politics. But they are also dismal affirmations of the inability of Arab states to adapt to a new situation in the region and internationally. Assad may be a member of the club, which makes him untouchable, but he is also an avatar of potentially disastrous stalemate. If Mubarak senses that Assad is the last bastion holding back Syria's Islamists, it doesn't say much about his legitimacy or that of his Baath Party. It also implies that Arab leaders cannot see beyond the short-term palliative of defending a discredited Syrian regime, even though its survival will doubtless increase the strength of Islamists and the likelihood that the Baath's removal will be violent.
It tells us something else as well. Hariri's death showed that as far as the international community was concerned, high-profile killing was no longer business as usual. For the first time, the Security Council called for an investigation of a political crime under its own authority, and this is ongoing. Will the international body stay united? Probably not, and the council's consensus has already started fraying, with Russia and China now showing more of a willingness to feel Syria's pain than previously. However, a precedent has been set, and though many Arab officials prefer to look the other way on Assad, their willingness to do so shows how little they grasp the reality of an international order where state sovereignty is proving gradually less effective in shielding criminals.
The true danger for the Arab states is that as they become less relevant in shaping the Middle Eastern agenda, the non-Arab peripheral states - Iran, Turkey and Israel - are becoming more so. Already, the Israeli elections have shown that Israel is united around a unilateral drawing of its border with the Palestinians, and it is persuading the international community of the benefits of this. Meanwhile, the Arabs offered nothing original on the Palestinians in Khartoum, while Arab publicists, forgetting their onetime loyalty to secular nationalist Palestinian slogans, now loudly celebrate Hamas, oblivious to the fact that its calls for a long-term truce give Israel precisely the time it needs to pursue unilateral policies.
As for Iran and Turkey, the first is intimidating and finagling its way toward hegemony in the Gulf region, seeking nuclear weapons, and meddling in Lebanese affairs; the second is slowly integrating into the European Union, whether it becomes a full member or not. The time is fast approaching where the Arab states will be ciphers in their own backyard, pawns or barricades between far more powerful actors. Khartoum would have been a good forum to discuss avoiding this. Instead, like much in Arab politics, it was a costly waste of time.
They never will...as the 'Prophet' said..."a race of losers."
These poor bastards are really in a vice.
Trying to guide 13th century troglodytes into the 21st century is not a job your's truly would want.
I wouldn't be them for all the tea in China.
You know, 30 years ago there were all these 'Socialist Republics' popping up all ove the place. Most people in the west, especially in the USA thought these people were a united front against us. We soon learned it was a house of cards and it fell.
Now its 'Islamic Republics' and as seen in this article, it is another house of cards.
Stay the course, Christianity and western civ will prevail.
We must stay the course lest man descend into the pit of hell on earth.
We had decades of nuclear brinkmanship and tens of millions had died.
"Stay the course"
The Cold War wasn't won by being idle, and either will the WoT. It takes vision and steadfast action.
The subtext here is that Arab bigshots, who know each other better than anyone in the West knows any of them, don't trust each other for a nanosecond. I believe the pompous einsteins in places like the State Department would do well to take a lesson...
The subtext here is that Arab bigshots, who know each other better than anyone in the West knows any of them, don't trust each other for a nanosecond. I believe the pompous einsteins in the State Department and elsewhere, who think 'we can do business'(other than just business) with these people, need to take a lesson...
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