The Arab summit in Libya at the end of the week will be the third for the Arab leaders within a year or so, after the (first economic) summit in Kuwait and the Doha summit. Fourteen months later, the agenda remains unchanged since neither the situation and circumstances in the Arab region have shifted nor the unified Arab vision, which was called for by the kings and leaders to face the challenges has seen the light. Instead, some central issues have become increasingly complicated, from Sudan to Iraq, going through Palestine and Yemen, while the growing presence of the superpowers and the role of the neighboring states have turned the region into an arena for a Cold War, which none of the sides can claim it can prevent from turning into a heated conflict, especially if there is a need to amend the balances of power to exit the current stalemate. A quick look at the Middle East region can clearly show that the complications generated by the arrival of Benjamin Netanyahu and the extremist right wing to power have almost finished off the little hope that some still had in seeing a “settlement.” Moreover, they herald a “comprehensive” war on the Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian fronts and a “religious” war over Jerusalem. They also show that the Iranian nuclear program is not only an element of concern and tensions between Israel and the superpowers on one hand and the Islamic Republic on the other, but It has also become a key issue for the Arabs of the East, from the Gulf to the Mediterranean. What the region is suffering today surpasses the state reached by Europe during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, since the small fires prompted by the confrontation between the two giants remained relatively distant from the European scene, which used to sleep and wake up on the nightmare of the greater explosion on its territories. For its part, the distance separating Iran and Israel will not only be the arena of the great explosion, but also the arena of the small fires, of which we saw painful samples during the last few years, from South Lebanon to Gaza and Yemen, and from the silent war of raids and assassinations in Syria and Dubai to the assassination of a number of Iranian scholars. Such a regional and international picture alone heralds the full undermining of an Arab regime, whose elements were never completed, even decades after the establishment of the Arab League, let alone if we were to add the obvious flaws affecting the inter-Arab relations in general, and the flaws affecting the relations between the national components within a large number of Arab countries suffering sedition and announced or silent civil wars that are portending serious divisions, dismantlement and the emergence of new borders and maps from Sudan, to Somalia, Yemen, Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq. However, what is the most dangerous in this picture is not only the possible eruption of the great confrontation, in which the Arab Levant and the Gulf states will pay the biggest price, but also the end result of the major “settlements” whose hefty cost will be at the expense of the Arabs, their role, system, regional security and maybe even some of their regimes. In light of these complications and the intertwinement of the causes and the crises, it may no longer be useful to talk about who will attend and who will be absent from the summit, or talk about the fact that Palestinian division has caused the loss of the “settlement” as though the latter settlement was ready and awaiting the side that will receive it from Netanyahu. Moreover, it may no longer be useful to talk about the division of the Arab ranks between the “dissenting” and the “moderate”, about this being the reason for the absence of Palestinian unity or for Arab weakness, about the escalating crisis between Washington and Tel Aviv and what the Arabs could reap from it, about the necessity for the Iraqis to “be reasonable,” to proceed down the path of reconciliation and to hold on to the unity of the country and the land far from foreign interference, or about the growing military role of American “missiles” in the states and the waters of the Arab Gulf, the condemnation of this role or that of the positions of the Islamic Republic. Rare are the Arab summits, which confronted the challenges that faced the last Kuwait and Doha summits and what the Sert summit will face in a few days. At a time when Netanyahu is continuing to defy the American administration, while trying to move the battle to the United States and while proceeding with the settlements policy, will the summit repeat the steps undertaken by the prior ones by threatening to withdraw the Arab initiative, which was ratified in Beirut, announce its death or come up with alternatives so that those who wish to surrender or commit suicide among the Palestinians do not do it? When the Israelis and the Iranians roll the war drums, will it be enough for the summit to repeat its call for a Middle East free from weapons of mass destruction and its rejection of a military solution for the Iranian nuclear program? The deadlock reached by the peace process in the Middle East places the Palestinians and those participating in the summit before limited choices. Indeed, President Barack Obama has so far failed to show an ability or determination to force Netanyahu to discontinue the settlements policy and push the defiance until the end, and is on the verge of loosing the trust of the authority and some Arabs whom he convinced of engaging in indirect talks, in the hope of exerting the promised pressures on the “strategic ally” during and not before the negotiations, under the pretext that this would work better. For their part, if the two Palestinian sides conflicting over power were to sign a reconciliation paper, what would be left for them to put forward before the leaders in Sert, far from the “language of betrayal or bullying?” The rockets policy in the Strip entailed the tightening of the blockade and the increase of the tragedy, while the awaited Intifada in the West Bank is not heralding positive results as much at it is heralding the destruction of the minimum aspects of civil life and leading Ramallah and its surrounding toward a fate similar to that of Gaza. So, will they settle for a policy of anticipation while the settlements are eating up more land and rendering the establishment of a “viable” state quasi impossible? On the other hand, the predicament faced by the sides involved in the conflict related to the Iranian nuclear dossier is limiting the choices of the people of the Gulf. Indeed, they neither want a military solution, in which their states, societies, economies and oil would be subjected to bombs and missiles, nor want a political solution or an American-Iranian understanding, in which they would be the victims following the consecration of the hegemony of the Islamic Republic over the region at the level of security, politics and oil. All of that while knowing that this was refused for Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait at the beginning of the nineties. For its part and after three decades, Iran does not seem to have learned how to relinquish its two methods or “languages” when speaking to its neighbors to reassure them. Indeed, Tehran invites them to be led and “protected” by it instead of them turning to Washington as President Ahmadinejad called on them with arrogance during the Doha GCC summit two years ago, then threatens them with the worst calamities and the closing of the oil passageways and roads. In the meantime, it is trying to consecrate its influence in Iraq, after it did so in Gaza and Lebanon, and is seeking to do the same in Yemen! This expansion has rekindled the underlying feelings of some components of the Arab Peninsula states. The list of critical crises and challenges facing the Sert Summit, from Somalia to Sudan with its South, West and North is quite long, not to mention the tensions prevailing over the relations between more than one Arab side. Therefore, reaching a unified Arab vision or strategy capable of lifting the challenges does not seem to be an easy task, since the road toward a unified Arab position is linked to conditions, namely the reviewing of many inter-Arab relations and Arab relations on the regional and international levels, based on the mutual recognition of the joint interests of the people and states of the region and the international interests in oil and its safe passages. It also requires the adoption of a strategy capable of forcing all the players in the region and the international community to reconsider the way they deal with the interests and just causes of the Arab world. So, will the Sert Summit be up to the level of this challenge or will it be like the other summits, a mere occasion for yet another souvenir picture for the leaders?
