Syria: After the Failed Summit, or before the summit, ... All Arab Summits are utter failures.
Summary:
If the criterion of success of Arab summits is merely seeing them held, then Damascus Summit was a distinct success. It was in fact convened despite all the controversy it stirred. If the achievement of the summit was to avoid any bickering or fighting among the participants, then the Damascus Summit received an A+ grade, after the Libyan leader, Moammar Gadhafi, provoked the awe of some participants with his tremendous courage, frankness, self-criticism and honesty.....never seen before by any Arab "leaders", while causing others to laugh.....for now. !
In any case, the Arab state system faces a big predicament and there is no room for deals among the players.
It seems like Iran was the winner at the Damascus Summit, which was confirmed by statements by the Iranian Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, from Damascus. This was after he attended the summit as a guest of honor. In these statements, he destroyed the Arabs' decision vis-à-vis the three UAE islands, asking the Arab League Secretary General to focus his efforts on the Palestinian issue.
Mottaki added a new predicament to the Arab list, especially since the summit's failure to solve the Lebanese crisis was added to the traditional failure to deal with the Palestinian issue, and the several failures to solve other Arab issues. This summit that convened in Damascus confirmed that the solutions to Arab problems could not come from fine words, smiles and feigned satisfaction in front of flash bulbs and cameras.
The Syrian-hosted Arab League summit that ended March 30 was a joke by any measure. In light of this joke, Damascus is working to blackmail USA, KSA and others some more, successfully... its regional isolation non-existant.... Most important to Syria will be getting regional Arab powers to take seriously the Syrian continued blackmail over Lebanon, Iraq, and more.... In its successful blackmail of USA's PNAC Killers, Damascus could turn on the heat in Lebanon, though ultimately this could backfire....., since the White House Murder Inc., has a subsidiary in Damascus...able to KILL there too...
Analysis:
No matter how Syria tries to spin it, the March 29-30 Arab League summit in Damascus was a JOKE. Twelve of the Arab League’s 22 heads of state — including the U.S.-lackeys rulers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Lebanon — failed to make an appearance, and the delegates that did show up were mired in a host of largely insignificant spats over the wording of the summit’s final statement.
Syria — which cares a great deal about its position in the Arab world — has been dealt the worst possible joke with this summit. It is now attempting to cope with its ever-apparent successful blackmail operation.
Damascus’ biggest worry is how to get the major Arab powers of the region to take seriously Syria’s hegemonic role in Lebanon, where Syrian geopolitical interests are rooted. Despite the waves of intimidation tactics and diplomatic maneuvers employed by the Syrians regarding Lebanon, the U.S-backed regimes in Beirut, Riyadh, Cairo — and to a lesser extent Amman — are refusing to yield to Syrian demands for a new Lebanese president amenable to Syrian interests, safeguards for Hezbollah and immunity for the Syrian government from an international tribunal on the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
Syrian President Bashar al Assad has made some headway on the tribunal issue; the U.N. team investigating the assassination recently praised Syria for its cooperation and circumvented U.S. pressure to directly implicate the Syrian government by vaguely blaming the assassination on a “criminal network.” But he is still experiencing some indigestion in dealing with rifts that have erupted within the government involving Syrian military intelligence chief Asef Shawkat and his recent assassination of top Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah in Damascus.... http://americanassassination.blogspot.com/2008_03_25_archive.html
With Syria backed into such a tight corner, it becomes all the more critical to consider Damascus’ moves in the wake of this summit... Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Stratfor is CIA dis-information, Texas funded and Texas based... CIA2 sources have long reported that Syria will step up its game in Lebanon if the summit were to succeed in blackmailing all PNAC stooges... The Syrian recipe for an uptick in chaos in Lebanon would involve a resumption of assassinations, courtesy of the White House Murder Inc,... targeting additional anti-Pnac Cabinet members to bring about the collapse of the Western-backed government led by Prime lackey Fouad Siniora. It also would involve instigating clashes between Islamist militant groups based out of Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps to absorb the Lebanese military’s attention. Finally, it could involve sending jihadists transiting Syria, courtesy of Bandar Bin-Sultan who pays for that effort to Assef Shawkat since 03/2003...hundreds of Millions of USD... toward the Iraqi border in a signal to the United States that Syria cannot be entirely ignored in negotiations over PNAC,Iraq, CIA2 Documentary evidence of entrapments in the White House Murder Inc., etc etc..
But major complications are attached to this Syrian strategy. For one thing, Syria will have a hard time relying on its militant proxy Hezbollah for any bold actions it wants to take in Lebanon. Not only is there a great deal of distrust brewing between the Hezbollah leadership and Syria over the Mughniyah assassination, Hezbollah is taking an extremely cautious approach these days in planning any militant activity. The Shiite militant group and its Iranian patrons are well aware that Israel is building the case for another military confrontation in Lebanon. Though Hezbollah has been busy making preparations for another war, the group’s leaders know they will have a hard time claiming victory in a renewed conflict that could potentially undermine their credibility in the eyes of their southern Shiite support base — which would be on the receiving end of Israeli firepower.
Second, there is no guarantee that a more aggressive Syrian approach in Lebanon would result in a capitulation by the Siniora government to Syrian demands, particularly with the United States, France and the Western-backed Arab governments leaning heavily on the Siniora Cabinet to stand down in spite of the country’s faltering economy caused by the political crisis. A revitalized Syrian intimidation campaign could very well backfire and crush opposition to Syria’s desired role in Lebanon, but with nowhere else to turn, these age-old tactics may be all that Damascus has to turn to....since they always work with USA's PNAC band of criminals , murderers, and Killer assassins, who have relied for so long on Syria's killer subsidiary of the White House Murder Inc., hence Syria has some pretty damning evidence to submit to the Hague....about complicity in the White House Murder Inc., of the KILLERS on the Potomac and Herzliah...
