DOHA // The Arab League summit may have lasted just a day, but it grabbed the headlines nonetheless thanks to the tirade against Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah by the Libyan leader, Muammar Qadafi. But for all its colour, some analysts say when the summit ended a day earlier than expected on Monday evening it lacked any significant conclusions. Although there were calls for the Middle East to be free of nuclear weapons, concerns over Iran's nuclear programme were not dealt with explicitly. Similarly, comments on the importance of a time frame in dealings with Israel over the 2002 Arab peace initiative were not accompanied by any actual time frame.
The summit did however lead to strong backing for the Sudanese president, Omar al Bashir, who is facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court and whose participation in the summit was a major talking point before he flew in on Sunday. According to Mazhar al Zoby, a professor of politics at Qatar University, there was an absence of "serious, coherent and consolidated outcomes" because of rifts within the 22-member league.
"The lack of outcomes reflects the seriousness of divisions," he said. The rift between what Prof al Zoby described as "moderate states" and "oppositional states" came to the fore in the differing responses from Arab countries following Israel's offensive in Gaza in late December, and has not been resolved by the summit. "It is between those who see the Israeli occupation as the problem and those who see the opposition to the Israeli occupation as the problem," he said, adding that related disagreements on how to deal with Iran and the Palestinian group, Hamas, had similarly not been tackled.
"There are deep divisions that have not been reconciled," he said. "It is not surprising nothing has come out of this." Indeed Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt, who has had differences with Qatar over its response to the Israeli offensive, and its closeness to Hamas, failed to attend the summit, although 17 other heads of state were present. If it is to prove more effective at subsequent summits, the Arab League should focus on fewer issues and give itself achievable objectives, said Hady Amr, the director of the Brookings Doha Centre in Qatar.
"In the 64 years since the creation of the Arab League, it has accomplished disappointingly little to improve the lives and enhance the dignity of the people of the Arab world," he said. He said the average person on the street would probably not be able to point to a single achievement of the league. "It's not a criticism of [the Arab League's secretary general] Amr Moussa; it's a criticism of the states that have not come together to solve the common problems of the people of the Arab world.
"They have not been able to solve the national crises of Palestine, Iraq or Somalia. They have not created dignity, education or health care for the people of the Arab world," Mr Amr said. "It's a shame. The Arab League could do so much more if, working together, the members were to select one problem and focus on it." Not all analysts have taken such a downbeat message from this week's gathering. Ibrahim Oweiss of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar sees cause for optimism.
He said personal relationships between leaders that had "suffered in the past couple of years" had been improved by the summit, as shown by the meeting of Sheikh Abdullah and Mr Qadafi after the Libyan leader's outburst. "Also, they specifically mentioned that the Arab peace initiative will not remain on the table forever and so they are searching among themselves and through the foreign ministries for what strategy if any they will be able to pursue," he said.
"That's an important point that came out of the summit." Next year's summit is set to be held in Libya, after Iraq declined its option to host the event for what were described as "logistical reasons", but suggesting it would be ready to host the event in 2011. Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, said "logistical reasons" was not a cover for concerns over security. "We've reserved the right to host it, but for logistical reasons, for capability reasons, not for security reasons, we wanted to give ourselves more time," he said.
"Maybe 2010 wouldn't ensure the time to prepare the accommodation, the hotels, the facilities and so on. "We could have hosted the summit, but not in Iraq, but somewhere else, but the feeling was that it doesn't make any sense unless you have the summit in Baghdad." dbardsley@thenational.ae