The 15th Arab summit, a one-day meeting on the Iraq crisis held in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh last weekend, concluded its work by calling for a peaceful outcome to the crisis, setting up a special Arab committee to intervene directly with all sides. Al-Ahram Weekly staff were there
End of the road
With Egypt having worked hard to hold an Arab summit to discuss the Iraq crisis, few of its participants believed the meeting could avert Washington's drive to war, writes Nevine Khalil
Click to view caption |
FACES OF THE SUMMIT: President Mubarak and Bahrain's King Bin Eissa; Syrian Foreign Minister Al-Sharaa'; Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and Libyan leader Gaddafi during a row which was aired live on television
|
While few, if any, countries represented at the Arab summit in Sharm El- Sheikh last Saturday believed the meeting could halt Washington's war drums or influence Saddam Hussein's next move, for most it was still a necessary last ditch attempt to save face in front of their own people and the world.
"The European Union had a meeting, the Non-Alignment Movement is meeting, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference is about to meet, and the Arabs are keeping very quiet about the Iraqi crisis," noted President Hosni Mubarak, shortly before a consensus was finally reached among Arab leaders to hold an urgent one-day summit at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.
"We must show our people that we are making an effort to stop the war," Mubarak said. A demonstration of its desire to avert war was important for Egypt after thousands have been taking to the streets in recent weeks to protest the war and to express solidarity with the Iraqi people. "There is anger on the streets because there is a feeling that Muslim countries are under attack," noted Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher shortly after the summit.
Egypt's second concern in holding the Sharm El-Sheikh meeting was to bring forward the date of the routine summit scheduled for 25 March in the Gulf state of Bahrain, host to the US 5th Naval Fleet, and which, along with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Jordan, will "facilitate" US military operations against Iraq in the event of war.
Holding the summit beyond the mid-March date -- when war is widely expected to break out -- would have been too late. "This is an urgent matter," Mubarak said on his way back from visits to Berlin and Paris last week. "We could not hold the summit after war broke out because that would have caused further problems and given an opportunity for finger-pointing about whose fault it is that war was not averted."
Egypt has consistently said that it is opposed to a US-led war against Iraq, that Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad must cooperate fully with the UN weapons inspectors, that more time should be given for the inspectors to do their work and that military operations outside the cover of a UN Security Council resolution would spawn further anger, resentment and even terrorism worldwide.
For the Egyptian government, the Palestinian issue is at the heart of the Middle East problem, representing a bigger threat to stability and peace in the region than does Iraq. The final communiqué issued after the Sharm El- Sheikh meeting reiterated these points. Cairo wanted the summit to conclude in "one united Arab voice" as Mubarak put it, and despite some on-camera spats it appears to have more or less done so.
Despite pledges by participants that the future of Saddam's regime and person were not on the agenda, and assurances by Arab League Secretary- General Amr Moussa that Saddam's stepping down had not been discussed during his telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Colin Powell on the eve of the summit, participants were nevertheless confronted by a United Arab Emirates (UAE) initiative suggesting that Saddam step down within two weeks.
Maher was quick to deny that Egypt had been informed of the proposal before it was made in the UAE presentation, telling reporters that "such a paper was not presented to us officially".
The issue of regime change in Iraq, Mubarak said, "is a matter of domestic politics, we do not interfere in it", Maher echoing this by saying that it was "illogical and unacceptable for a foreign country to impose on another people the abdication [of its leadership] or installation of another leadership".
In Cairo's view, appealing to Saddam to step down was in any case futile, since, Mubarak said, "I very much doubt that Saddam would ever leave willingly."
In holding the summit, Cairo achieved several goals, among them organising an Arab face-saving manoeuvre, partially appeasing an angry population wanting to see action over the Iraq issue, formally putting forward its continuing objections to war and securing a place on the high-level committee that will be speaking to key players in the US-Iraq standoff.
This committee, comprising representatives of the Arab summit troika of Bahrain, Lebanon and Tunisia, as well as of Egypt, Syria and any other Arab country wanting to take part, will soon be meeting with officials at the UN and in Baghdad and Washington about the need to give diplomacy a further chance to avert war.
The aim, Maher stated, was to "try and salvage peace from a very difficult situation".
