The Sirte Summit of the Arab League sent several messages to the United States, Israel and Iran. Resolutions for implementation were not taken. The $500 million allocated by the Summit in order to preserve the Arab nature of Jerusalem appears to be a bitter joke, compared to what Israel is spending on Judacizing the city. The Summit's ruling out any option other than pointless negotiations to confront the Jewish state's plans has enshrined Palestinian division, and does not support the US administration in its confrontation with Netanyahu. The Summit adopted the proposal by the Arab League's secretary general, Amr Moussa, to adopt good relations among “Arab neighbors.” But this is not built on strategic foundations for confrontation, for many reasons. Most importantly, the Summit participants lack a unified strategy that would let them invite others to adopt this strategy and put it into practice. As for the clearest message from the Summit, it was directed at Iran, which was excluded from the meeting because of its intervention in Lebanese, Palestinian and Gulf affairs, and its wide influence in Iraq. Iyad Allawi was the Arab “horse” in Iraq, and everyone supported him, from Egypt and Saudi Arabia to Syria, which is Tehran's closest ally in Lebanon and Palestine, and its undeclared rival in Iraq. Allawi narrowly won the recent election in Iraq, and regime Iraqis went to Tehran to confront Allawi from there. They sent a message to the Summit that was inspired by the Persian holiday Nowruz. A delegation was formed, made up of President Jalal Talabani, the leaders of the Supreme Islamic Council, the Dawa Party faction led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and Najirvan Barzani, representing other Kurdish groups in Irbil. They all celebrated Nowruz, while the Summit was taking place in Libya. They agreed with the opinion of Muqtada Sadr, the industrious student who is continuing his religious studies in Qom. They held meetings to reduce the simple disputes among them, in order to exclude the Arabs' candidate, who was victorious in the elections. They fled from Arabism, with its old and contemporary history. They sent a Kurd to the Summit to participate with Arabs in their affairs, while everyone went to Tehran to decide their political fate for the coming phase. The answer came from Libya. The leaders decided to hold an Arab Summit in Baghdad next year, and refused to consider Iran a part of the “League of Neighbors.” This enshrines a notion that has been prevalent for a few years, which is that priority should be assigned to the conflict with Tehran and its regime, which has unlimited aspirations in the region. The idea expresses an Arab and international policy to contain the Iranian regime and affirms the move toward dividing the Arab world into two parts. The best expression of this policy is the meeting between President Bashar Assad of Syria and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, and their insistence on inviting the leader of Hizbullah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, to join them in Damascus, a few days before the Summit. There, they declared that the priority is the struggle with Israel, and that they would respond to any attack launched by the Jewish state. The Arab nature of Jerusalem is a long-standing Arab policy, while the new policy for the coming phase is the Arab nature of Iraq, and its return to the fold of Arabism. But to which Arabism will it return?
