Gamal Nkrumah asks whether Lakhdar Brahimi will do any better than Kofi Annan in his attempt to stop the Syrian war For those who struggle with arcane laws of the Arab Spring and whether Gulf Arab nations will catch the bug prompting political reform and social change, Gulf newspapers were something of a disappointment. These papers were far more preoccupied with the Syrian crisis, and that includes one of the most prestigious papers, the Saudi daily Okaz, dubbed by Lawrence Wright of the New Yorker as the "Arabic version of the New York Post." The question now is how Saudi Arabia can capitalise on its financial clout and petro-dollar prowess, and in particular vis-�-vis Iran and Syria. Saudi Arabian papers were conspicuously silent about the contentious issue of Saudi human rights activist Mohamed Fahd Al-Qahtani who this week called for a public exposition by the media of his trial, a demand the Saudi authorities declined. In sharp contrast, Saudi papers, however, were far from silent on the question of the Syrian crisis. Okaz Editor-in Chief Hashim Abdu Hashim conducted an interview with US President Barack Obama's special envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit Rashad Hussein at its headquarters in Jeddah. "The summit was important for bringing together such a large number of participants in response to Saudi King Abdullah's call to discuss the Syrian crisis," Hussein said. "Our participation was to give a strong signal of our support to the Syrian people and the democratic process in Syria," Hussein informed Hashim. In his column entitled 'Brahimi and bloodbaths', Editor-in-Chief of the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat Ghassan Charbel explicated on the difficulty of the mission facing Special Arab League and United Nations envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi. "Kofi Annan [Brahimi's predecessor] conceded the failure of his mission in Syria. He collected his dossier, his papers and ended his unaccomplished mission in Syria and returned to take his proper place among the Group of the Wise established by Nelson Mandela in 2005, and that also includes luminaries from troubled countries like Brahimi himself. Annan made it clear that he was furious with three parties -- Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, Russia and China. He urged Al-Assad to resign from the presidency, and blamed Russia and China for causing the Security Council not to speak with one voice," extrapolated Charbel. "I do not understand what compelled a retired personality with the calibre of Annan to embark on such a mission that he knew all too well would no doubt end in failure... Brahimi was closely watching Annan's mission, and he knew the keys to the Syrian, Iranian and Russian doors, while Annan didn't have a clue as to the whereabouts of those keys�ê� Those who know Brahimi's style of diplomacy understand that he will not go round in circles carrying a precise and preordained prescription. They also suspect that he will not put all his cards on the table�ê� in all probability he will choose the weapons of wait-and-see and patience," Charbel predicted. "The bitter reality is that Brahimi needs more bloodbath scenarios in order for his peace plan to succeed," warned Charbel. "I know the ruthlessness of what I am alluding to, and in particular where the relatives and loved ones of those who lost their lives in the Syrian civil war. However, everything now points to an escalation of violence as we approach a fresh season of bloodletting," he concluded. The Saudi columnist Nayef Maala, also in Al-Hayat, wrote a thought-provoking piece entitled 'Why the Emirates in particular?' in which he questioned the reason behind the preoccupation of pundits with human rights violations in the United Arab Emirates. "I can clearly see an attempt to export the Arab Spring to the Arab Gulf region," Maala stressed. "These articles, statements and tweets are designed to give the impression that an Arab Gulf Spring is inevitable. However, I see no reason to base this suggestion on facts. I rather believe they are merely wishful thinking," Maala notes. The front page headline relating to the Non-Aligned Movement summit in the Iranian capital Tehran that read 'Fracas between Cairo and Damascus in the Tehran summit' set the tone of the paper. Editor-in-Chief Charbel complimented the extensive reportage concerning the Tehran summit with a column entitled "Mursi's bombshell". "Sometimes a person is delighted when a prominent personality accepts the invitation to parley with an arch-foe after decades of boycotts and sensitivities�ê� and the delight is accentuated when the party that extends the invitation is Iran and the visitor who accepts the invitation is none other than Mohamed Mursi, the first democratically elected president of Egypt in the post-25 January Revolution, and who emerged from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood," remarked Charbel. "However, experience denotes how surprises are always plausible. The polite guest sometimes cannot hesitate to ruin the wedding feast," Charbel says, presumably in jest and tongue-in-cheek. So far so sensible. It also makes strategic sense to tell his audience, in Charbel's opinion, that Mursi declared that both the Syrian and Palestinian people need liberation and emancipation from repressive regimes. "The Syrian and Palestinian people demand liberty, dignity and justice," wrote Charbel and he quoted Mursi as saying that liberating the Syrian and Palestinian people is a "moral imperative, a duty and responsibility." The Syrian delegation walked out in disgust and Mursi's Iranian hosts were flabbergasted. It is a Catch 22 for a country in deep trouble. Iran wanted to use the NAM summit to buttress its position on Syria but Mursi put an end to the Iranian fantasy," Charbel figured out. The London-based pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat concurred with its rival Al-Hayat on the commotion set off in Tehran by Mursi's bold statements. "Iran is the problem, so how on earth can it be the solution?" was the provocative title of columnist Radwan El-Sayed in Asharq Al-Awsat. "Iran is on the defensive, being encircled by foes and yet it wants to give the impression that it is on the attack and therefore does not propose a balanced agreement based, on moderation concerning Syria, to the Arab world," stressed El-Sayed. "Iran cannot play the moderator or the mediator in the Syrian crisis since it is fighting alongside the repressive regime of Al-Assad," El-Sayed summed up. Also in Asharq Al-Awsat, Zein Al-Abidine Al-Rukabi wrote a compelling column entitled 'With the commencement of September: Has the world succeeded in containing terrorism?' The writer reminded his readers that former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice conceded that the White House had received information of a possible terrorist strike by a hijacked civilian aircraft prior to the 9/11 incident that rocked America and the world.
