Mixed Messages and Open Friction:
The Arab League Summit in Damascus, 2008

By   Sami Moubayed

The latest Arab Summit in Damascus was preceded and accompanied by intense diplomatic wrangling and threats of a boycott, all geared to pressure the Syrian hosts to change their position towards the political crisis in Lebanon. Yet, the Syrians scored a partial success by holding the meeting on time and by demonstrating that they will not easily yield to pressure, argues Syrian analyst Sami Moubayed. According to Moubayed, the confrontation over the summit and Lebanon should be seen as part of a larger and complex regional power game, played out in several interconnected theaters between the US and its Arab allies on one side and Iran and Syria on the other. Read...

Sami Moubayed teaches at the Faculty of International Relations at al-Kalamoun University and authored numerous books on Syria, including the latest “Steel & Silk: Men and Women Who Shaped Syria 1900-2000” (Cune Press, 2005). He is also editor-in-chief of Forward, Syria’s leading English monthly and a biographer of former Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli..