The forthcoming Arab summit in Tunis has many grave issues to address, but slowly, after a long period of darkness, light may be spreading on the landscape of international politics, writes Clovis Maksoud* At last, the "regular" Arab League summit will convene on the 22nd of this month in Tunis. The embarrassing spectacle that accompanied its sudden postponement in March signalled to the Arab people the paucity of seriousness, lack of commitment to the summit institution and an unacceptable obliviousness to the nature of the challenges that confront the Arab nation on the part of Arab leaders. This should impel the same into efforts to recover their lost credibility. Only actionable resolve can offer redemption. In coming days, the summit will be called upon to renew both the confidence of the Arab constituency and the respect of the international community. Needless to say, this is a daunting task but not necessarily impossible. Frankly, there is much scepticism concerning the outcome. There is a widespread feeling that too much blood has been spilt, too many disasters have escalated and too many issues become more complex since the summit was postponed in March. However, this should not mean that all is lost or that whatever comes out of the summit is irrelevant or inconsequential. This is -- and should be -- an opportunity to reassess the predicament of Arab collective policy. This entails defining and adjusting Arab national purpose to the profound changes that are taking place on the regional and global levels. To start with, it is crucial to emphasise that the League is a confederacy of Arab states, not solely a league of Arab governments. The concept of "state" includes civil society as well as government. In this sense, the League's Secretariat should be the bridging instrumentality. It will expose policy and decision makers to opinion makers and to a wide range of advocacy and service organisations, political parties and institutions. There was a shy attempt in this direction, but its realisation was thwarted by lack of sustained pursuit, and by persistent intrigue over what the meaning of civil society is and is not. However, this problematic is not expected to be addressed, let alone resolved, during the coming summit. This is understandable as there are immediate and pressing critical problems that have to be addressed forthwith. The summit agenda cannot and would not escape prioritising the Palestinian question. It is imperative that it does not fall into the trap of treating the "roadmap" as a firm commitment unless and until its principal sponsor, the United States, defines the parameters of the outcome. In other words, the question to the US and the Quartet should be: What is the map? This question has to be clearly answered prior to any commitment on the Arab side to the roadmap process. It must be understood that no negotiation is valid if the outcome is not clearly spelled out. Negotiations become focussed, then, on the timing and modalities leading to the desirable and mutually acceptable outcome. Since Oslo there have been no negotiations but mere discussions that led to ad hoc arrangements. Why? The answer is clear. Israel never acknowledged that it is in the Palestinian occupied territories as an occupying power. It dealt with the territories as a claimant. This reality renders negotiations futile besides raising false expectations and hopes. This summit can be helpful in requesting the Quartet to elicit from Israel recognition that its legal status is that of an occupier, so that serious and consequential negotiations can begin. The Arab summit is thus expected to undertake an intensive campaign premised on the Quartet's answer to the question "Where is the map?" and impel Israel to cease rendering minor redeployments -- as the Sharon proposal suggests -- as "painful concessions". These are preliminary objectives for the summit to undertake. Besides, the summit should not allow the Quartet to sidestep the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees. In this matter the summit must highlight the issue of Israel's "law of return" that if taken to its logical conclusion culminates in an overflow to the occupied territories, as it did earlier, allowing Jewish "returnees" to crowd Jerusalem and other parts of Palestine. If the right of return is to be denied in order to preserve the "Jewishness" of Israel, why the outcry against the UN resolution "that Zionism is a form of racism"? Should not the summit raise this fundamental question and relinquish the notion that raising it is "unrealistic"? It is time, thus, that the Arab summit insists on answers that would gradually lower the levels of crisis and gradually diffuse the tension and thus render the prospects of a just solution feasible. It is expected therefore -- unlike earlier Arab summits -- that an intensive diplomatic and informational campaign must follow instantly in order to highlight the gravity of the situation and avoid further disasters waiting to happen. This summit cannot be deterred by the American presidential elections where both candidates pander shamelessly to the "Jewish vote". It is time that the Arab League deals with the US on this issue of Israel as a collective and no longer exclusively in terms of bilateral relations with the United States. Now is the time to acknowledge that it is unfair for the Arab state system to prod the Palestinian people to confront alone the aggressive Zionist project in the region. The other urgent crisis that the summit will face is the present situation in Iraq. The Arab leaders in Tunis will have to deal with a unique political and legal paradox: the invasion of Iraq was a clear violation of the UN Charter. The pretexts of this invasion were proven lies, planned by right-wing pro-Likud officials embedded in Vice-President Cheney's office and the Pentagon. No weapons of mass destruction were found and no connection between Al-Qaeda and Saddam's regime proven, nor did Saddam's regime -- despite its obnoxious character -- have any ties with the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the US. All this renders the US occupation totally illegitimate. The paradox is what is not legitimate is nonetheless legal by way of UN Security Council resolutions. The Arab summit and the League's member states must devise means to navigate through the complexity of this unique paradox. Above all, this means that the summit must collectively devise a policy of involvement that treats opposition to occupation as legitimate. It must acknowledge that this Iraqi opposition takes different forms, ranging from active political resistance to varying degrees of militancy. The summit must be emphatic in recommending and helping to build a framework where militancy and non-violent resistance are mutually reinforcing. In other words, the unity of the objective -- namely national independence -- must bring about among the Iraqis an operational consensus. Furthermore, the Iraqi resistance must act to prevent the collapse of an integrated Iraqi political narrative and realise that revengeful acts are no synonym for legitimate resistance. The summit, during its diplomatic and informational campaign, must convey to the international community that Iraq is primarily an Arab issue. It must also convey that the ending of occupation means the transfer of sovereignty under UN auspices in cooperation with the Arab League. Sovereignty will be unworkable if it does not encompass Iraq's national security. The summit can convey to the US and its allies that military bases negotiated during the period from now until the elections in Iraq are extended means of "occupation", especially if these agreements are made with the current US-appointed Interim Governing Council. Security requirements thus necessitate in the sovereign Iraq the presence of significant numbers of international troops, though they must be under UN auspices and work jointly with the Arab League. This can be realised especially as the US is now thinking of a NATO force to get out of its present dilemma. As to the summit responding to the US- sponsored "Greater Middle East" initiative, I believe the obvious intent is to slip Israel into joint undertakings with Arab states, thus de-Arabising the region as well as undermining authentic Arab collective efforts at reform. In sum, the Arab summit meets at a time of profound changes at the international level. The US is beginning to discover that replacing persuasion with dictation leads to deep resentment among its closest allies. It has further discovered that projecting ruthless power generates reckless reactions. American public opinion has already begun to realise that its invasion of Iraq has squandered the solidarity and support that it had in the aftermath of 11 September. We are now discerning an ongoing awareness that the right wing Likud-like cabal in the administration might have overplayed its hand. The pathetic marginality of Secretary of State Colin Powell and the professionals in his department has rendered arrogance a dominant characteristic of the Bush administration's public diplomacy. Perhaps equally important is the latest dramatic results of the Indian elections. India, at this moment, is returning to its democratic secular policies that underlined Nehru's legacy. It is a genuine rebellion against the cruel dimensions of globalisation, besides being a revival of the values and principles that were the underpinnings of the policies of nonalignment. India's new role will definitely strengthen and embolden European efforts towards achieving a multipolar world. With India now, Brazil and South Africa earlier, it is possible and desirable to empower the UN role in peacekeeping and peace building. This means that the UN, along with other regional organisations such as the Arab League, could render globalisation more humane, answerable to the needs of the poor and responsive to their overall liberation. The victory of the Congress party at the recent elections is only the beginning of a healthy trend in international politics that has for too long eluded us. The Arab summit today has a historic chance and opportunity to broaden its remit, ceasing to confine its relationship only to the Americanised West. This summit has an opportunity -- in a way historical -- to enable the Arabs to accomplish many of their aspirations. This means that the Arabs must join the architects of a new multipolar world, not in confrontation with the US but in an endeavour to free ourselves from the shackles of needless dependency and wasteful confrontation. The return of India to its principled role will bring with it a restoration of Indian-Arab authentic understanding that was crudely breached by the BJP's military alliance with Israel. Yet this means that Arab foreign policies have to undertake a profound review, which entails continued dealings with the West but a refusal to be co-opted by it. Despite the gloom and the disarray we are now experiencing, there is a surreptitious sense that expectations of better times are no longer an illusion. * The writer is a veteran Arab diplomat and political analyst based in the US.
