Iraqi leaders find in the Arab Summit they will be hosting in a few days the opportunity to complain and to export their disputes abroad. Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, who has sought since reaching his post to return to Arab ranks, will find in the summit a valuable opportunity for him to reconcile with the Arab leaders who attend it, something he has failed to achieve throughout the past years. Indeed, he is accused of encouraging Iranian influence to infuse his country, of facilitating communication between Tehran and Damascus, and of being part of the axis of defiance, which forms the core of inter-Arab disputes. Participating in leveling these accusations against Maliki are the leaders of political parties and sectarian communities – such as Ayad Allawi, Saleh Al-Mutlaq, Adnan Al-Dulaimi, Usama Al-Nujayfi and Tariq Al-Hashimi – who add to them domestic reasons, accusing him of marginalizing them and excluding them from power, and of taking decisions unilaterally. And let us not forget the stance taken by the Kurds, with Massoud Barzani having accused him of monopolizing power and returning Iraq to dictatorship. If the stance taken by the Kurds is understandable, within the framework of the struggle over oil between Erbil and Baghdad – in addition to the disagreement over “disputed areas” – and over their efforts to gain more independence from the center, it is only understandable at the Arab level within the framework of the struggle for power. It is a struggle based on the sectarian and confessional reality, one that quite often takes on a bloody nature, and one that has very clear Arab and non-Arab foreign ramifications. Arab leaders will visit Baghdad from their planes, and will remain near its airport for a few hours. They will see nothing of what the American occupation has produced, nor will they see the traces of the successive wars against Iraq, or the neighborhoods cut up and divided on confessional bases. They will have no time to listen to Allawi's complaints about Maliki, or to the latter's point of view on domestic or foreign issues. They will not see the armed organizations and militias, nor the destroyed hospitals or schools – none of all this. Indeed, there is no domestic Iraqi issue on their agenda. The issues on the agendas are old ones, such as that of Palestine and the occupied Golan Heights, or recent developments, such as the conflict in Syria… And these are matters that are extremely difficult to resolve – matters in which Arab and international aspects intertwine, and matters for which implementing decisions would require the Security Council, as well as the readiness to take firm decisions, which had not been available in the past and is not available today. Arab leaders will return to where they came from, to follow up on their own affairs and the affairs of their own countries, and to manage conflicts from their capitals. And Maliki will return to his conflicts with Talabani, Barzani and the other leaders of sects and ethnic groups, reassured to a truce he would have obtained at the summit, and to the fact that he has become accepted in the Arab World. Yet he will be subjected to tests, and to numerous domestic pressures. Everyone will be watching him inside Iraq and abroad: will he distance himself from Iran and from the Syrian regime? Will he make concessions to those who oppose him on some of the positions he holds? Will he turn into a Prime Minister for all Iraqis? Iraq after the summit will be the same as it was before it: rampant corruption will remain the object of complaints from Iraqis of all sects and confessions… The funds squandered on illusory projects will not return to their rightful owners… The leaders of religious parties will not give up their clerical cloaks to build a secular state. It would have been preferable for Iraq's leaders to return to themselves before returning to the Arab World. Indeed, their return as they are today will only increase the division of the Arab World. The Arab Summit will convene in Baghdad, but the disagreement over what it means to be Arab will remain as it is.
