Well, This is Also MY Reaction to Most Arab Summits . . .

Egyptian President Morsi and the rest of the Egyptian delegation at the Arab Summit in Doha, via Al-Arabiya.

I thought it was just me who thought Arab summits tended toward the soporific.

Video of Qadhafi at Doha

Here's the BBC Arabic Service's video of Mu‘ammar al-Qadhafi's performance at Doha the other day. (I believe the mustache is new, isn't it?) As Qadhafi criticizes ‘Abdullah, the Chair keeps trying to interrupt with Ya Akh Mu‘ammar... (Brother Mu‘ammar) and then Qadhafi launches into his King of Kings and Imam of the Muslims bit. Even if you don't understand Arabic I think you'll be able to follow the body language and tone.

Also, while I realize it's rather déclassé to comment on someone's dress — though much of the world press has spent the day talking about Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni Sarkozy's fashions — Qadhafi also continues to do the thing with the shades indoors, and if that red outfit isn't the exact color worn by Catholic cardinals, my eyes deceive me. At least, unlike some of his earlier jeu d'esprit fashions, it doesn't have big epaulets.

I don't mean to sound patronizing or worse, orientalizing. Obviously the Qataris, Saudis and many others attending in full royal regalia would stand out on the streets of a Western city. But Qadhafi doesn't dress like anyone else in Libya, unless I'm sorely mistaken, so this isn't a native dress thing, so much as a what-will-he-show-up-in-now thing. He is already the Elvis of the Arab League. Can rhinestone jumpsuits be far in the future?

Also, Brother Leader is five years older than I am. When I showed my wife this video (I am 61 and have pure white hair and beard and even gray is a memory), she raised what might be called the Grecian Formula question. I merely note the fact. His hair is still jet black at age 67. (So is Mubarak's at 80 plus, but there, there is a division between the Grecian Formula interpretation and the toupée interpretation. But that's a whole different controversy.)

Anyway, Qadhafi remains the Arab leader hardest to categorize. And it lets journalists keep "mercurial" in their vocabulary. And I have to give Sheikh Hamad of Qatar (I think that's he in the chair) credit for a great deal of sangfroid in dealing with Brother Leader. In a very different Arab Summit in "Black September" of 1970 (the one which saw Nasser's fatal heart attack at the end), Qadhafi — then in power for just a year but now the "dean of Arab rulers" — is alleged to have actually drawn his sidearm and offered to shoot King Hussein on the spot. If that really happened (I at least hope it's apocryphal), this latest episode was a relatively minor breach of protocol in comparison.

Post Mortems on Doha: Do These Men Look Comfortable with Each Other?

Do these men really look comfortable with each other? Talk about awkward body language in an official photograph. Note the amount of space between them and their facial expressions, not to mention Qadhafi's slouch. And what is it with Qadhafi's right leg? Is that his Superman cape, or what? And this was their big reconciliation meeting after Qadhafi denounced ‘Abdullah. Really convincing reconciliation if this is the best photo they could manage.

The Doha fizzle is drawing a lot of comment in the Arab world, and Marc Lynch has done a good round-up here so I'll just refer you to him and not bother to do the same thing here. And if you don't follow his blog at Foreign Policy regularly, if you didn't see his last day of Doha posting I'd refer it to you both for content, and especially for his leading me to this great picture of King ‘Abdullah "making up" with Qadhafi. Talk about awkward body language. I'm reproducing a copy of it here but not from the Foreign Policy website as I have no idea what copyright claims they might have to their version and, as an Editor and publisher, I revere copyright. So I stole this one overseas. I think it's a Saudi Press Agency shot originally.

Baghdad Fighting Prompts Arab Summit to Avoid Iraq

Iraq had been hoping that Baghdad would be the site of the next Arab Summit, but the outbreak of fighting between the primarily Shi‘ite government forces and the Sunni Awakening (Sahwa) councils has apparently persuaded the Arab League to choose Libya as the venue instead. The fighting is complicated and somewhat dangerous, since other Awakening Council leaders are threatening to break with the government unless ‘Adil al-Mashhadani, who was arrested last week, precipitating the fighting, is released. Since the success of the "surge" in pacifying Baghdad and several Sunni provinces was largely accomplisahed through the Awakening Councils, the continued stability of the country could be in jeopardy if the present clashes spread.

Other reports say that Nuri al-Maliki has asked that Baghdad host the 2011 summit, since the 2010 summit is going to Libya instead.

In this context, Juan Cole today notes the fact that many Sunni Arab states are uncomfortable with the Shi‘ite-dominated government in Baghdad. That is certainly a consideration; Maliki is also rather too close to the Iranians for Saudi tastes. And, of course, there is the awkward fact that meeting in Baghdad while American troops are still in the country would leave the League open to charges that it was tacitly cooperating with occupation. Nevertheless, the unfortunate coincidence of the clashes with Awakening and the Doha Summit gave added excuse for denying the next Summit to Baghdad. The Al-Zaman story linked above also notes that the Saudi King declined to meet with Maliki in Doha.

Given Qadhafi's outburst against King ‘Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the choice of Libya may seem a bit surprising as well, but Maliki's hopes for hosting the 2010 Summit were certainly undermined by the renewed violence.

Assessing Doha

As near as I can tell from the early reports, about the only thing the Arab Summit agreed on was that they don't approve of the International Criminal Court warrant against ‘Umar al-Bashir. The President of the largest Arab country pointedly stayed away, the scene-stealing Brother Leader Qadhafi did his trademark scene-stealing, and some lip service was paid to the Arab peace initiative but without any strong new reaffirmation of it. At a time when a hard-line government is about to take power in Israel, this might have been a real opportunity to promote the initiative, but instead the usual inter-Arab quarrels (and the Arab League's rule requiring unanimity for any resolution), tended to produce a fizzle. The unanimity rule, which makes only the most anodyne resolutions possible — except, ironically, the agreement to back Bashir, whom the rest of the world wants to put on trial — is not particularly popular since it makes the Arab League almost useless, but to change it would require (of course) unanimity. In retrospect it is almost more surprising that the Arab League peace initiative was crafted in the first place, but it would have been refreshing to see it enthusiastically endorsed by the Doha Summit. The failure of Doha to bring the so-called moderates together with the so-called hardliners (or even to persuade Mubarak to show up) probably bodes ill for the soon-to-revive Palestinian unity talks. A rightist Israeli government, feuding Palestinian factions and a divided Arab world do not make for optimism, at least in the short term. I will be delighted to be proven wrong.

Doha: Qadhafi Does his Qadhafi Thing

The Doha Summit was already going to be interesting because of buzz about who was coming (‘Umar al-Bashir showed up) and who wasn't (Husni Mubarak was boycotting), but then there is always the perennial question of Arab summits: what will Qadhafi do?

Mu‘ammar al-Qadhafi is known for his tirades at summits, but for this one he seems to have been in especially classic form, denouncing the Saudi King and, when the Qataris cut his microphone, proclaiming that he was "the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam of Muslims." I wonder if the other African states were aware that giving him a one-year chairmanship of the African Union made him the King of Kings of Africa? (Hmm: this AFP story says he was given the title by "African tribal dignitaries," whatever that means.) I don't recall hearing him claim to be "Imam of the Muslims" before. I guess we have to give him "dean of the Arab rulers," since he's been in power since 1969, though I thought he had previously argued that he wasn't a "ruler" but simply a "Guide" of the Revolution who held no official position.

He then stormed out and visited a museum. The opening session of the Doha Summit has not been the display of unity the Qataris hoped for; perhaps things will improve. The Egyptian absence and the fact that today's official Egyptian papers are virtually ignoring the summit — Al-Ahram's lead story is Mubarak visiting an agricultural development project — underscores the longstanding feud between Egypt and Qatar. [NOTE: That story is no longer at the coded link: I assume when the new day's edition goes up, the links change.]

LATER: The BBC now says that reports Qadhafi "stormed out" were incorrect, but other reports say he went to the Islamic Museum instead. At any event he made a scene of some sort.

THE TEXT: In case anyone wondered if the reporting of his words was accurate, here's an English dispatch from the official Jamhiriyya News Agency, with (presumably official) text. The "standing ovation" was not, however, mentioned in other accounts.

Weekend Gleanings

As usual, I've dedicated my weekend to family, but before I start my own commentaries on the week, I'd like to refer you to a couple of useful reads over the weekend from other sources:

• The Doha Summit. It's started now, and one of the oldest hands at Mideast blogging, Marc Lynch, in his Foreign Policy blog, has offered "A User's Guide to the Doha Summit." It is exactly that, and a good introduction. I'll offer commentary as the results become obvious.
• Prince Nayef Next in Line of Succession? Saudi King ‘Abdullah, before leaving for Doha, and faced with the fact that the Heir Apparent, Prince Sultan, is in the hospital recovering from surgery and reported to be in poor shape, named his half brother (full brother to Sultan and the late King Fahd) Prince Nayef as Second Deputy Prime Minister. That does not officially put him next in line to the throne (since there's a new process for officially naming heirs), but it traditionally puts him there. Nayef is not terribly popular in the West: he was a strong denier of the 9/11 Saudi link for a long time and a hardliner domestically as Interior Minister. But the fact that the next in line after Sultan has been left up in the air even as Sultan is indisposed seems to have made it necessary to identify someone as, at least, the putative next in line. This Financial Times article plays the story straight. But this is Saudi Arabia, and like the old Soviet Union watchers, the Kingdom-watchers love to speculate about what is really going on. This leads to lots of rumors based on what somebody heard about the real intrigues within the Royal Family; former Washington Post correspondent Tom Lippman, a colleague of mine at MEI, has often noted that these rumors need to be dismissed, and other old Saudi hands I know agree: whoever is talking doesn't know what's going on; those who do don't talk. But if you want the conspiracy theory, Britain's The Independent has one ready for you, complete with the fact that no one has allegedly seen Prince Bandar in weeks. (The cynic in me wonders if they've looked in Aspen.) I really doubt that this is anything more than it appears on the surface: ‘Abdullah is leaving the Kingdom; his heir is in the hospital and ailing; he needs some sign of continuity. I could be wrong, but I sure wouldn't bet on The Independent's interpretation. The Kingdom doesn't work that way.
• UPDATE: On the Saudi situation, Gregory Gause posts at Marc Lynch's Foreign Policy site, saying "Nobody Knows What it Means." Greg Gause is a very well-informed Gulf watcher, and he knows better than to buy every rumor floated by the press. The succession is obviously important, but reading the tea-leaves is not so easy.
• UPDATE II: Simon Henderson at the Washington Institute offers his take.
  

I refer you to these for reading until I'm able to offer some comments of my own later today.