With oil prices soaring, Arab governments have real opportunity to invest in regional cooperative relations, bolstering the Arab world against uncertainties ahead, writes Gamil Mattar* Amr Moussa should seize the earliest possible moment to introduce an agenda to be implemented by the Arab League General Secretariat over the next few years, for promoting Arab regional integration, capitalising on progress that has been made in this direction over recent years and mobilising those forces in the Arab world that support the process of regionalisation. The Arab League's secretary-general has at least two reasons for taking this action, the first having to do with timing, the second with opportunity. The time when Amr Moussa's tenure as secretary- general comes up for a second term is rapidly approaching. Most likely, Arab heads of states and senior officials will be discussing this matter in their forthcoming meeting a month from now. Whether it is Moussa himself who voices his desire to serve a second term or Arab governments that nominate him, I would think that the best way he could promote his prospects would be to unveil a plan for building on the joint Arab action programme that he initiated. This programme for stimulating inter-Arab cooperation and integration has been largely successful; and while he may be responsible for some of the mistakes or shortcomings in its implementation, more to blame are those governments that have clung to the habit they have exhibited -- of circumventing their obligations -- ever since the league was founded. The opportunity to which I am referring is one that does not present itself as regularly as the election of the secretary-general. For the second time in 40 years, the Arab region, if I may use the term, is experiencing a huge financial boom, and it will be necessary to draw up forecasts of anticipated revenues, which have already begun to pile up in Arab oil-producing countries, and make projections of the amounts of these revenues that will trickle into other Arab countries in the form of remittances and investments, or will gush into those countries as the consequence of a massive regional economic upswing. It appears that the already higher price of oil will rise again, and remain at its new height for some time to come, contrary to the predictions of the government of Vladimir Putin and a handful of economic experts. Accordingly, Western analysts have advised Moscow to draw up its economic plans on the basis of higher oil revenues over the long term and to invest these revenues in the diversification of the Russian economy and the expansion of this diversified economy eastward into Siberia and southward into the Caucasus. How odd it is that those Western analysts did not give the same advice to Arab governments. We all know that the Arab world's greatest blessing, and also a source of some of its miseries, is the great increase in the production and prices of oil over the past few decades. I recall when this started. It was when, in the early 1970s, the Arab League's general secretariat seized the right time and the opportunity to persuade Arab governments to initiate a number of regional integration projects, some of which are still performing their role effectively in the service of the welfare and stability of the nations of the region. There thus, came into being the Arab Economic Development Bank, the Arab Monetary Fund and the Arab Technical Aid Fund. There emerged several Arab transnational companies, some of which got off to a vigorous start until the Arabs fell into dissension again. In addition, mechanisms and networks for Arab-European dialogue and Arab-African cooperation were put into place. I also recall how, at the time, Henry Kissinger spearheaded the Western drive to accumulate an autonomous oil reserve so as to keep the Arabs from using oil as leverage to achieve their political aspirations, or to hamper the ambitions of the West. Today, 30 years later, history is repeating itself. Oil prices have soared tremendously within the space of a year. Oil-producing nations are feeling a new surge of optimism. World powers are scrambling to reorder their relations with the major oil- producing nations in the Middle East as Washington wrestles with itself over the dangers of continuing to rely on foreign oil resources, especially those in the Middle East and Venezuela, and the Bush administration is doing its utmost to cast oil-producing capitals as greedy and unpredictable demons. Yet, as all these developments -- important as they are -- are unfolding, not one Arab government, nor their regional organisation, has taken note of the splendid opportunity that fate has presented to the Arab world: the opportunity to turn a portion of the new influx of revenues towards the revival of Arab regional integration. Is it stubbornness at work or just plain negligence? Or is it foreign pressure, or the fear of foreign pressure? I simply cannot understand why Arab governments and their political elites seem so set upon not seeing the importance of frameworks for collective action and regional integration. I cannot understand why they are so envious of Latin American countries that have striven to improve their economic and political well-being through non-American dominated frameworks such as MERCOSUR (the Mercado Com�n del Sur, or Southern Common Market), or of the countries of Southeast Asia whose steadily growing economic achievements are in large measure due to their determination and effectiveness in promoting regional cooperation and integration as well as their resolve not to allow the US into their regional cooperative frameworks, when they -- or some of them -- resent the existence of Arab initiatives or enterprises that have benefited the majority of Arab peoples. I cannot help but to ask, along with others, whether there is a connection between the propensity to neglect the need to stimulate mechanisms for collective Arab action and the increasing popularity in this part of the world of the maxim, "Look after yourself first." I can understand, and appreciate, what might motivate this thinking. However, I do not see why it should be put to the service of spurious policies that aim to drive wedges between countries of the region and propel the Arab world towards further disintegration. I say "spurious" because there is clearly a concerted drive in progress to compel Arab countries to go their own way, to ignore their common bonds of language, culture and religion and their common geo-strategic interests, and to strike up independent cooperative relations with Israel, the US and Western Europe, on the pretext of the exigencies of globalisation, realism and modernisation. The Arab League performs a role that no Arab government or other Arab organisation can. By the Arab League, in this context and at this particularly crucial time, I am referring to the General Secretariat, which has undergone numerous changes in the past few years, both in terms of its methods of operation and its relations with Arab League members and foreign nations. It was no small measure of the significance of the Arab League that the US turned to it for help in Iraq; to alleviate some of the conditions wrought by its invasion and occupation, thereby enabling the US to redraw its tarnished image at home and abroad. Although the Arabs wavered considerably, they, too, had an interest in helping the Iraqi people and, undoubtedly, US pressure helped persuade them. Now that some benefit has accrued, to some parties at least, from the Arab intervention in Iraq, it would seem reasonable for the General Secretariat to build on this experience towards hastening regional integration. After all, the Arab intervention in Iraq, whether taken at the behest of the US or not, was a prime instance of collective regional action in every sense of the word. Still, I imagine that Arab governments and officials will take some convincing, although a renewed drive towards this end has several points to draw on. I doubt, for example, whether there exists a single person in the Arab world who does not recognise the need for an immediate overhaul of our educational systems. Certainly, too, it is about time we address that joke that is told about the Arabs to the effect that for the longest time they relied on a single export commodity, until they decided to diversify into terrorism. I hope that our region's second oil boom reaps greater benefits than our first. I simultaneously expect that the negative reactions to this boom will be stronger, more widely felt and more immediately threatening to national unity at a time when Arab nations should be aspiring to regional cohesion. In this regard, I believe that the Arab League should create a body to monitor collective achievements and failures, tensions and disputes between member nations -- especially those with a direct impact on commerce, finance and the flow of labour -- and the domestic developments in Arab countries that could eventually have a negative impact on the stability and security of the region. I further think that it would be useful to coordinate with the UN's Economic and Social Committee for Western Asia (ESCWA) towards urging Arab governments, which have benefited from the UN's other regional agencies, to work towards a higher level of integration. I see little conflict between the activities and aims of the Arab League and those of this UN agency. Meanwhile, the political sensitivities that paralyze the Arab League do not tend to hamper the work of ESCWA. If both are encumbered by red tape and poor planning and organisation among Arab League members, then at least Arab governments tend to be more careful about their reputation when interacting with international organisations and regional agencies than they do in their dealings with the Arab League. I therefore believe that they will pay closer attention to recommendations coming from UN headquarters in New York. On the other hand, the Arab League has its Arab nationalist kudos behind it which, if measured out appropriately, could win over portions of the decision-making circles in Arab countries. In short, working in conjunction, the Arab League and ESCWA could mobilise Arab integrationists and recruit new generations of supporters of "Arab regionalism." Arab regionalism is the safe way out from the suicidal fragmentation to which some Arab elites are leading their country, and the fertile middle ground between the fanaticism that is rifting our societies along class and sectarian divides and globalisation that is destroying the still fragile structures of societies that are striving to stand on their own feet. Unfortunately, I fear that we will let the current opportunity slip by; that surplus revenues will pour into real estate and construction. I fear that Arab governments, or forces within Arab governments, will use the banner of "political reform" -- confident that no one will object to that banner -- as a means to cover their moves to steer their countries away from the regional fold. I expect to hear people in these governments say that their country has done all it could for the Arab League, that it responded to the call to amend the voting system, that it worked to found an Arab parliament, that it encouraged bureaucratic reform in the General Secretariat, that it cooperated with the league's political intervention in Iraq, but that it has no desire to get bogged down in another collective endeavour. There is only one way to answer such calls, and this is to press forward with new projects for regional integration and to bolster the ones that already exist. We are at a critical crossroads and there are some precarious roads leading off this junction, as recent developments indicate. But we are not entirely defenceless, or lacking in resources, contrary to what much of our behaviour in the international arena suggests. Indeed, this region and its governments has been presented with an occasion that does not come around frequently; the Arab League stands before an opportunity that it should take advantage of, and the Arab peoples have a burning desire for change. * The writer is director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
