The date of the regular Arab Summit, hosted this year by Libyan Colonel Muammar Al-Qaddafi, is only a few days away. And because the host is Qaddafi, this summit will have a taste, color and flavor different from those of other Arab Summits. Indeed, the Libyan leader makes sure at every occasion he attends, and at which he gathers with other leaders, to have a unique presence, through oddities, paradoxes and carnivals. In fact, in his presence, Arab Summits would only manage to elude declared failure through the efforts of their hosts, who would be heading the summit and running its sessions, to contain Qaddafi's oddities and fits of anger. As for the summit he will host at the end of the month, he will be heading it and running its sessions, and thus all the elements will be available to him to put forth everything he was no able to at previous Arab occasions. One can only imagine what this summit will be like from the types of behavior that have come from Qaddafi over the past few days, which are in effect days of preparation for the summit. It is only natural for such behavior to be unrelated to the scheduled agenda of the summit of the heads of state of the Arab League, an organization which the Libyan leader had announced leaving years ago, returning to it only after it became part of his theory on African unity. Qaddafi quarreled, on the eve of the summit, with the greatest number of countries in the world. He announced punitive measures against the European Union's Schengen group, and threatened to deprive the United States of his country's oil, after imposing an economic embargo on Switzerland and declaring Jihad against it. He is in a state of great quarrel with the West, to which he paid billions in Libyan oil money in order to have his embargo lifted and to return to the international community, and before which he relinquished other billions that formed his fictional nuclear program. Thus this battle of Qaddafi's, as he hosts the Arab Summit, will be on the scheduled agenda of Arab leaders, in a direct or indirect manner. At the very least, the Libyan leader will not miss the opportunity to incite against those who have antagonized them in the West, in preparation for the summit. And he will not miss the opportunity to denounce the Arabs who do not support him in this battle whether he is right or wrong. But who of the Arab leaders will attend the summit? Among Qaddafi's preparations to convince the greatest number of them to attend, it is notable that the series of Arab disputes which he provokes are getting worse instead of better. Indeed, from Mauritania to the Comoros Islands, through the countries of the Maghreb, the Nile Basin, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and the Arabian Gulf, there is always an unresolved issue in which Qaddafi has placed himself as a disputing party. There are also demands from Qaddafi in order to withdraw such disputes, the latest being the provoked problem with the President of the Palestinian National Authority, with what it symbolizes and represents in terms of all the decisions taken at Arab Summits in its support… Unless Qaddafi still considers it to be an obstacle to the establishment of “Isratine”. The host of the summit has the right to invite whomever he pleases to attend its opening session. The guests in such a case are usually leaderships of international organizations that are tied by relations of collaboration with the Arab League. However, at Qaddafi's summit we might see faces that are unusual at Arab Summits. Indeed, the Libyan leader, who is at the same time the “King of Kings of Africa”, will invite some of his tribal “subjects” in their traditional garments to witness his ability to unify the Arabs and the Africans, and to convince them of spreading his influence beyond his subjects, not just because he is the “longest-serving Arab head of state”, but also because of his ability to transform an Arab institution, which is fragile to begin with, into a carnival. No one can wager on the fact that holding an Arab Summit anywhere else will represent a historical transformation and a turning point in the region, as well as a solution to all of its problems. Indeed, experience has shown that the matter has never in the past exceeded the limits of talk, reiterated statements and pleasantries between Arab leaders, with perhaps reconciliations on the side. Yet one can wager without any risk on the fact that Qaddafi will, as its host, turn it into a peculiar phenomenon in the history of Arab Summits and into an exciting carnival, its details and the limits of its strangeness known only to its sole star.
