It is true that the closing statement of the Arab Summit in Doha only mentioned Iran when reiterating its condemnation of the latter's continued occupation of the three Emirati islands. However, the fact that most of the summit's discussions and decisions were focused on Syria first, and on the Palestinian issue – especially Jerusalem – second, makes Tehran the target of these decisions, alongside its ally the Assad regime. This is particularly true as it was not invited to Doha, as had become the custom in past Arab Summits. It also goes together with Saudi Arabia's declaration that the investigation with the members of the spy network recently arrested there has revealed that they are directly connected to Iranian intelligence services. Tehran, for its part, rushed to launch a counterattack against the Arab League, and considered that the latter's “dangerous behavior" of giving Syria's seat to the opposition signifies “an end to the organization's role in the region". In fact, the Iranians have never recognized the Arab League except within a traditional diplomatic framework, without this ever including recognition of it as a political institution that serves as a frame of reference and aims at unifying the stances taken by the Arabs on the issues of their region. They have always rejected its decisions concerning Tehran's own violations of the sovereignty of Arab countries, and its constant work to cause a breach in this or that Arab country, and to weaken Arab defenses in general. The fact that Maliki's Iraq always departs from Arab consensus, especially when it comes to the issue of Syria, is only one indication of the negative influence exercised by Tehran on the formation of such consensus, which drives towards maintaining the loopholes caused by the politics of competing axes, so as to facilitate its breach of the system of joint Arab action. It has also become openly known that the Iranians, who control decision-making in Baghdad to a great extent, have been intensively making use of Iraqi airspace to transport weapons and fighters to Syria in order to defend the regime there, and that is what US Secretary of State John Kerry focused on during his visit to Iraq a few days ago. Moreover, their Lebanese formation, Hezbollah, is up to its ears in fighting alongside Assad's forces, under the unconvincing pretext of protecting Shiite villages inside Syria, as it has suddenly announced. The other main issue which the Doha Summit sought to retrieve from Tehran's grip was the issue of Jerusalem, which the Iranians have long used to outbid the Arabs on this central issue of theirs, turning it into a slogan they would pull out every time the Arabs took a step towards unifying their stance on the peace process, or drew closer to achieving Palestinian reconciliation. Indeed, after the Gaza card was taken away from Iran following the latest war in the Gaza Strip, the summit has come to assert the priority of the Palestinian issue and the situation of Jerusalem for the Arab World, and to reflect the latter's will to dedicate a great deal of political and financial support to the Palestinians and to engage in diligent diplomatic work to restore their unity and defend their right to an independent state. The Arabs certainly expect a concrete Iranian response to their efforts to regain control of the region's issues, especially as Tehran has allies, deep pockets and both active and dormant cells, and as such a response could take the form of political or security escalation in Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen and other breached arenas. Moreover, they know that this time they will have to prove that they are serious in confronting Iran's infringement on their borders, their security, and their issues, and refusing to be blackmailed on their home soil.
