Ahead of the scheduled March Arab summit, political polarisation is dividing Arab states, Dina Ezzat reports While the countdown has begun to the annual Arab summit, due to convene this year in Damascus, looming on the horizon is a definite mood of Arab confrontation over the identity and future of the region. This week, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moallim undertook a tour of Arab Gulf capitals to deliver invitations for participation in the two- day official Arab gathering scheduled to commence 29 March. Riyadh, however, was not immediately included. The fury of Saudi monarch King Abdullah over what he qualifies as Syrian influence obstructing Lebanese progress in electing a head of state is widely understood as the basis for Riyadh's reluctance to even receive an invitation to the summit. According to several Arab diplomats, Riyadh is sending a message to Damascus that it needs to extend an invitation to Lebanon if it wishes to host and chair the Arab summit as scheduled. Otherwise, there is a possibility that Saudi Arabia might not turn over the chairmanship of the Arab summit to Syria at all. On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia moved its ambassador in Damascus to Doha without nominating a successor. In line with the rules of the Arab League, Syria is the next host state by virtue of alphabetical order. As such it has to invite all other 21 member states and the secretariat of the organisation. Syria has so far avoided a clear stance on the issue of Lebanese participation. The vacant Lebanese presidential seat and the political falling out between Damascus and Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora -- a constitutional presidential caretaker but a majority figure in confrontation with Syria's Lebanese allies -- raises a question mark on Syria's attitude towards the participation of Lebanon in the next summit. On Wednesday, Lebanese majority Minister Naiela Mouade said that her political camp received assurances from several Arab capitals that they would likely boycott the Arab summit in Damascus if the Lebanese seat at the meeting were to remain vacant. Sources indicate that such assurances were carried through senior American officials who made no secret of their demand that Arab allies reconsider attending the scheduled Damascus summit should Syria continue to "block" the election of a Lebanese president. Arab diplomatic sources, however, are rather less clear about the boycott scenario. Some say that low-level representation of most Arab states is likely enough to deliver a message of Arab fury with Syria's "unhelpful" or "destructive" role in accentuating polarisation between the Lebanese majority and the opposition. Others suggest that the Arab "isolation policy" of Syria, which went into effect following Israel's war on Lebanon in 2006, ostensibly to punish Damascus for its support of Hizbullah, has failed to induce political lenience on the part of Syria. Arab League sources are generally fudging the question. They say that a delegation of the League's secretariat arrived in Damascus Tuesday to finalise with the Syrian government the logistics of the Arab summit. They add that Syria is obliged to extend invitations to all Arab states and that no League member requested either the cancellation of, or a change of venue or date of, the Arab summit. "Plans are underway as usual," commented one source. Nonetheless, there is no smoke without fire. At the end of a visit to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak voiced a carefully worded and unmistakable warning. "The Arab summit [is scheduled to convene] in Syria, and Syria is related to the Lebanese problem. I therefore hope that Syria will solve the problem of Lebanon." Syria's response came also this week by way of a senior government spokeswoman, Bouchra Abdel-Samad. In a radio interview Wednesday, Abdel-Samad qualified as "erroneous" any link between an end to the political impasse in Lebanon and the convocation of the Arab summit. The summit, she said, is supposed to address all problems. Meanwhile, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said this week that he is planning to visit the Syrian capital early in March. Moussa, who has so far failed to successfully mediate between the Lebanese political camps, said that he is determined to continue his efforts aimed to facilitate the election of a Lebanese president and to reach an agreement on power sharing between the majority and opposition. According to several Arab and Western diplomats, the problem is one of the conflicting influences of several regional and international players. The Lebanese majority camp, backed by the US and its Arab allies, is increasingly vocal that the "battle now" is one against Iran's attempted hegemony over the Arab world "through the gates of Damascus". The Lebanese opposition camp, on the other hand, backed by Syria and Iran and some Arab capitals, argues the opposite: whether or not the Arab region should be "delivered to the US and Israel" on "a silver platter crafted by the hand of their friends in the Arab world." "We are currently back to the mood of polarisation that the Arab world witnessed during the Israeli war on Lebanon in July 2006," commented one Arab diplomat. He added, "this is why the situation in Lebanon is so entrenched, because it is about the political identity of the country and that of the entire Arab region." He concluded: "it is a battle between those who subscribe to unconditional friendship with the West and those who favour a tight alliance with Iran." Several Arab and Western sources predict that the coming weeks and months will augur "days of fury". "It does not matter whether or not the Arab summit convenes or whether or not a Lebanese president is elected by miracle; the battle will go on," said one source. Though the ultimate result may be unpredictable, the intensity and pace of this battle is likely to be tuned by a sequence of events whose temporal unfolding is at least more certain. The fate of Palestinian reconciliation in light of a new Yemeni initiative and a Hamas-Israel truce proposal tabled by Qatar is one aspect. A second -- and related -- is the fate of post-Annapolis talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Also certain to impact the regional political mood in the coming months are the chances of a new set of US orchestrated sanctions on Iran and a new wave tension between Egypt and Israel over the administration of Gaza and Israeli plans to build a wall on the Egyptian-Israeli border. In two days, the foreign ministers of the Arab Gulf Council are scheduled to hold a regular meeting. This meeting may well further reveal the already unmistakable divide between Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, who wish to attend the Damascus summit in four weeks, and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, who entertain alternative views. Also in five days the regular council of Arab foreign ministers is expected to convene and reveal a similar divide, and may even play host to conflict over leaked Syrian allegations of Saudi and Jordanian intelligence involvement in the assassination of a senior Hizbullah commander in Damascus earlier this month. (see pp. 2,8,9&12)
