With no head of state to send to Damascus and no solution to their political crisis, the Lebanese are wondering what will follow the Arab summit, Lucy Fielder reports from Beirut Forlorn hopes that Lebanon may yet send a president to the Arab summit were dashed this week after Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri postponed a session to elect a president for a 17th time, just four days before the summit was due to start. Lebanon has been without a president since November, with the Western-backed government and opposition led by Hizbullah battling it out over power-sharing. Although the two sides have long since agreed on a consensus candidate, army commander Michel Suleiman, they are so implacably opposed on the issue of government formation, the general orientation of Lebanon's policies and its regional role, that there were few hopes of a breakthrough before the summit. Iranian and Syrian-backed Hizbullah's weapons are another bone of contention and a key reason for the high level of international interest in Lebanon. The summit itself, due to be held in Damascus this weekend, looked likely to be more than usually ineffectual at the time of writing, with Saudi Arabia having announced, as expected, that King Abdullah would not attend in person. Saudi Arabia, along with Egypt, accuses Syria of blocking the election of a president in Lebanon. The low ebb of Syrian-Saudi relations was illustrated by the latter's decision to send its ambassador to the Arab League, Ahmed Qattan, instead of Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal. Egypt is also reportedly planning a low-level attendance. At the time of writing, Lebanese ministers were about to meet to decide whether to send a representative to the summit. Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora, who has close relations with the Saudis and poor ones with Syria, is not expected to attend. If Lebanon sends a delegation, it is likely also to be low level -- perhaps its permanent representative to the Arab League. Like Riyadh, Washington and his government colleagues, Al-Siniora blames Syria for the killing of former prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri three years ago, which plunged Lebanon into crisis and created a nominally "pro" and "anti-Syrian" rift that still splits the Lebanese population. With the summit becoming little more than an opportunity to express dissatisfaction with Syria and deepen its isolation, little of use was expected to come out of the summit concerning the Lebanese situation. But the failure to elect a president beforehand increases the chances of a drawn-out political crisis. According to Osama Safa, head of the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies, it could perhaps last beyond the 2009 deadline for parliamentary elections. Syria's critics in Lebanon say Damascus refrained from stirring trouble in Lebanon to pave the way for a smooth Arab summit. Now that this is not within reach, they suggest that it may incite street battles or encourage the opposition to take drastic action if the crisis drags on as expected. An uneasy calm settled on Beirut's streets over the past three weeks following sporadic troubles in the first two months of the year, including the shooting of at least seven Shia protesters in the southern suburbs in January for which three army officers and eight other soldiers were arrested, and a number of clashes in mixed-sect areas of central Beirut such as Ras Al-Nabeh, Basta and Mazraa. It is as yet unclear who stirred the clashes, which mainly played out between supporters of the Sunni Future Movement of Saad Al-Hariri and Berri's Amal movement and Hizbullah. "I would expect reminders here and there and exchanges of messages once the summit is out of the way," Safa said, "such as assassinations, roaming bouts of violence, that kind of thing." Safa added that although predictions of a regional war have waned for now, the outlook for Lebanon depends on developments in the region and the coming change in the US administration. "Until then, Lebanon will either be on hold or witness a controlled and measured escalation as we have seen in the past few weeks. For now it appears to be more of the status quo," he said. Marking the 40-day commemoration of the assassination of Hizbullah military leader Imad Mughniyah, Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah struck a defiant tone with Israel, which the group accuses of the killing, but a conciliatory note on domestic politics. Nasrallah said Hizbullah would seek a solution to the political crisis regardless of the outcome of the Arab summit. Christian leader Michel Aoun, who is allied with Hizbullah, has also said the opposition is planning to introduce a new initiative. In a televised interview, Berri said he would call Lebanese leaders to a dialogue, which would be the third in the past two years, if the summit as expected yielded no solution. But leaders on both sides are widely seen as being devoid of new ideas to resolve the deadlock, and neither is likely to back down unless a regional development -- such as a thaw in Syrian-Saudi relations or a change in the US-Iran standoff -- pushes them to do so. Previous dialogue sessions eased tensions and reached agreement on more straightforward issues such as the status of Palestinian weapons outside Lebanon's 12 refugee camps. Bridging the chasm between the two main conflicting sides is likely to remain an elusive task for the foreseeable future, however. A Daily Star editorial this week proposed that a structure be put in place to stop another dialogue round from foundering, but the usually pro-government paper said the opposition's "good turn" deserved one in return. "Before [the dialogue] can happen, it is incumbent on 14 March to reciprocate by answering the gestures made by Nasrallah and Berri in kind. This would serve as a confidence-building measure, but also to get past the tiresome reliance of both sides on empty slogans," it read. "Only when each side has fully defined its goals and visions will they be able to make a realistic attempt at reconciliation," the editorial added.
