Dhahran Summit and the Dialogue of Priorities: The Arab League The World's Most Failure In Most Troubled Region
14 April 2018
By Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
Perhaps it's not for a political reason that the city of Dhahran was
intentionally chosen out of 20 Saudi cities to host the Arab League summit but
it's still geographically the closest city facing Iran. Iran was mentioned in
the major speeches delivered during the summit, indirectly and indirectly. The
meeting's sponsor, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz called for a "strong
international stance to confront Iran's behavior in the region," and renewed
warnings of the "Iranian behavior's danger."
Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit reiterated that there's a need
for an Arab stance against Iranian meddling. Arab governments have different
stances on almost all causes, except the Palestinian cause to some extent.
This has been the case of the 37 ordinary and emergency summits held in the
past 70 years as Arab states rarely agreed on decisive issues. This is why
politicians often formulate general, loose and long statements to bring
positions closer.
In his speech to the League's members, Aboul Gheit proposed a plan to confront
the multiple challenges via "a dialogue on the priorities of Arab national
security" and noted that "major threats confronting us are equally important
and dangerous." The Arab League secretary general is right to place all
important cases in one basket as, for example, Libya's crisis cannot be viewed
of lesser importance than Syria or Yemen.
Threats are common. Bahrain and Lebanon suffered from Iran's interferences six
years ago, and today we can see that Iran's rifles expanded the scope of their
activity towards Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria. If some Arab governments do not
think Iran's behavior is a threat, either because they're geographically far
from it or because they politically agree with it, the Arab League's principle
of joint defense, and on which the league was established, will have failed.
This is the significance of the dialogue which Aboul Gheit called for among
the 22 member states on the priorities of the Arab national security and
defining major threats.
Member states can adopt different stances that suit them but they are
committing a crime against the charter when they're biased in dangerous
causes. Not all countries are expected or required to militarily commit to
defend the security of other members states that are at risk but they're at
least expected to harmonize with the conditions of the membership of this
club, which is called the Arab League, by committing to a political stance in
solidarity. This is the weakest degree of faith.
Major and multiple crises in the region are a real test to relations between
member states and a test to the values and efficiency of the Arab League
system. It's nothing new to see it fail at meeting the minimum obligations in
terms of the League's charter which they signed. It's based on dialogue and a
review of these successes and failures that we can see whether there's hope of
treating this sick old League or not.
Unfortunately, our region, the Arab world and the Middle East in general, is
still the most troubled region in the world and the one with the most failure
in terms of political governance. This naturally reflects on and interprets
the failure of its organization, i.e. the Arab League. This institution can
play an important collective role in confronting crises. If it had done so
once and succeeded, it would have managed to establish values for itself and
for the member states.
The Arab Dhahran Summit concluded yesterday evening and a new year-long cycle
and new attempts will begin and may achieve breakthroughs that instill hope
during the upcoming months.
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is the former general manager of Al-Arabiya
television. He is also the former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, and the
leading Arabic weekly magazine Al-Majalla. He is also a senior columnist in
the daily newspapers Al-Madina and Al-Bilad.
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