[anotherview]

Nice to know who Iraq's friends are. Syria supports terrorism and controls Lebanon. Israeli intelligence has them hiding weapons for Saddam. Perhaps they need to be next on the list.

[George W. Bush]

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.

[yonif]

Lebanon=Syria

[Stultis]

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.