All talk and no action is signature of Arab cooperation, writes Amin Howeidi* Arab summits are happening thick and fast, and all sound the same. The venues change, and sometimes the names, but the topics hardly do -- perhaps because our problems don't ever go away. I know that we want the summits to make a difference. I know we want them to take us somewhere, but they rarely do. Many of our summits revolve around national security issues. For example, we may discuss the formation of a deterrent Arab force to stop Israel's systematic acts of aggression. Or we may look into the food gap and think of ways of achieving self-sufficiency. And of course, our leaders often mull over the Palestinian debacle and occasionally try to stop inter-Arab squabbles from getting out of hand. How many times have our leaders discussed the Arab- Israeli conflict? And yet Israel placed the entire Palestinian people under a blockade and we couldn't figure out a way to end it. We worry about food and have the means to produce more -- what with all the land and oil money? And yet we still import much of our food needs. In short, our summits are getting us nowhere. Why? For one thing, leaders should be the last ones to the table. Before we get the big guys together in one room, we should first do our homework. Experts must scrutinise every single problem and provide elaborate analysis and multiple options. Budgets must be discussed, timetables set, tasks defined, and responsibilities assigned. Before leaders are called into the room they have to know exactly what policy is acceptable and what action is feasible. Summits that fail are not just a waste of time, they are outright depressing. A summit's main job is to make decisions stick. We cannot keep on degrading our summits by making them pass decisions that are soon forgotten. We all know that the world is having a double crisis of food and energy right now. One may also recall that during the 1973 War Arabs used oil as a weapon and the West reacted by starting the search for alternative sources of energy. Many years later, it turned out that one of the alternative sources of energy is a main contributor to the food crisis. So now the Arabs, who have plenty of oil and make a killing selling it at top dollar, have a problem. Now we want to hold a conference to discuss restoring some balance to the oil and food markets. There's nothing wrong with that. My point, however, is that the West made a decision and stuck to it. Perhaps if we pay attention, we'll learn how to do the same some day. * The writer is former defence minister and chief of General Intelligence.
