Syria, Lebanon support Iraqi call for delaying Arab summit

Feb. 24, 2003
Syria, Lebanon support Iraqi call for delaying Arab summit
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Iraq picked up support Monday from neighboring Syria to postpone a summit of Arab leaders that is to focus on the US-Iraq crisis but has deeply divided members of the 22-nation Arab League.

"Syria supports the Iraqi request to postpone the Arab summit because this will give Arabs more time to think about the best way to deal with the situation," Youssef al-Ahmed, Syria's ambassador to the League said in a statement. "It will also help to reach a unified Arab position."

Al-Ahmed said Syria already has informed the Arab League of its view, but he did not say whether Syria would refuse to attend the summit if it is held as planned on March 1.

Arab diplomats in Cairo said Lebanon, too, supports the Iraqi position. Syria wields tremendous power in Lebanese politics, and Lebanon tends to follow its neighbor on policy matters.

Iraq has been trying to delay an Arab League summit set for Saturday until mid-March, or around the time a US-sponsored resolution that could authorize a war on Iraq would go to a vote in the UN Security Council. UN weapons inspectors also were to submit another report to the council on March 14, another reason Iraqi officials have cited for waiting on an Arab summit.

"By then, they (Arabs) would have ideas on how to carry out their mission properly," Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told The Associated Press on the sidelines of a Non-Aligned Movement summit in Malaysia.

Ramadan also expressed Iraq's disappointment with fellow Arab nations for not giving unequivocal support to its efforts to avoid a US-led invasion to disarm Baghdad.

Arab League spokesman Hisham Youssef said the League was going ahead with preparations for the summit to be held in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheik on Saturday despite the Iraqi request for postponement. The request was

being circulated to all member governments and Secretary-General Amr Moussa was consulting with senior Iraqi officials about it, Youssef said.

"The request is somewhat late," he said, and added that no member states were boycotting.

"I don't expect an Arab country to boycott a summit in a million years," Youssef said. Differences were being worked out, he said without elaborating.

Arab leaders, fearful of the consequences of a US-led war on Iraq, agreed to move forward their annual summit, originally slated for March 24 in Bahrain, and to hold it in Egypt. A summit is seen as a way to show restive anti-war citizens they are doing all they can to avoid war.

Arab League falling to pieces. There was an excellent article on this over the weekend.

Libya and Egypt see it as a disaster. A lot of these countries are actually looking to resist Sharia law and the mullahs by holding elections. Syria is one. Libya is renouncing the Arab agenda and turning its attention back to Africa. Egypt isn't very solid. And the Turks and Iranians aren't Arabs either. As much as anything else, there's new information that since '84, the average Muslim is poorer now than they were then. All the Jew hatred in the ME has impoverished them. And the mullahs and the traditional goals of the Arab League are part of what is holding these countries back from greater prosperity, despite the region's oil wealth.

There is a longer article on this from IslamOnline.net:

Arab World in Disarray, Divided over Iraq

Excerpt (emphasis added):

Arab League diplomats say Libya and other North African states have questioned the wisdom of a rapid summit as well as Lebanon and Syria.
The critics argue that an early meeting risks being hijacked by Arab allies of Britain and the United States to back rapid military action against Iraq.
Egypt has been the most vocal champion of an early gathering but its calls for an emergency summit later this month failed to achieve the necessary consensus at an extraordinary foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo on February 16.
That meeting was chaired by Lebanon and, to the fury of some pro-Western Arab states, issued a statement sharply critical of countries hosting U.S. forces as part of the U.S.-led military buildup in the region.
But the summit will be chaired by Bahrain, which had originally been scheduled to host the annual summit and, as the home base of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, is considered solidly pro-American.

My guess is that we have been putting big pressure on Egypt to make this happen. The smaller and more forward-looking gulf states that have committed themselves to alliance with America (Qatar, Bahrain, U.A.E., Kuwait) want some cover.

I suspect the plan was to press for a resolution denouncing Saddam as a war criminal and demanding that he step down. This could be sold as a "peaceful alternative" to war, but would also legitimize the now all but inevitable war for our Arab allies.

It looks like the bad guys may have outmanuevered us in this diplomatic skirmish.

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