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March 28, 2004
The Reform Summit, there is the reality (added Le Monde reference)
Well, I know American "conservative" commentators (hereafter, "the pre-fooled") have been fellating themselves over supposed winds of change in the region that they so badly want to demonstrate that the Iraq fiasco makes any sense at all, however here's a brutal look at the reality:
Arab Summit Meeting Collapses Over Reforms
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Published: March 28, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/28/international/middleeast/28ARAB.html
"TUNIS, Tunisia, March 27 — The summit meeting of Arab leaders billed as the first serious effort to make a collective commitment to democratic reforms ended Saturday before it began, with the host nation, Tunisia, insisting that it be postponed indefinitely.
In a statement, the Tunisian government said it felt that the commitment of Arab states toward reforms — from human rights to a greater role for women — was insufficient for the 22 foreign ministers gathered here to hammer out an agreement on common goals that the heads of state would endorse."
Super, a bit - no, rather suprising that they can't even get the facade together, that has been the whole purpose of Arab summits for the past fiftey years, to put a facade together while they busily stab each other in the back, and generally display some of the worst efforts at regional coordination of any given region in the world - this takes even the Africans for a ride.
Note "Some foreign ministers had refused to include certain words like "democracy" and "parliament" and "civil society," said Oussama Romdhani, an official spokesman for the Tunisian government. Officials who took part in the meeting said the very idea of supporting nongovernmental organizations as the building block for civil society had dragged on for four hours."
My money is, Egyptians on the last.
"Even by the erratic standards of Arab summit meetings, long marked by very public displays of anger and mutual insults, the sudden cancellation of the such an important gathering just before it was to begin seemed to come as a surprise."
This is wrong by the way, the public displays of pique are a welcome recent innovation, generally you had summits with all happy faces, and lots of documents that had a snowball's chance in hell of actually seeing anything vaguely resembling application. Like that infamous "Arab Free Trade Zone." Qadhdhafi's calling the Saudis stooges in the last one at least had an air of honesty and reality to it. Which is why the Egyptian cuts the broadcast. Actually that was a moment of rare entertainment, although I recall thinking that there was no way they'd let it go on for long.
And this is most amusing: "Most ministers were tight-lipped, refusing to even comment on a decision that they said had been made by Tunis in the absence of any consultation with them. Some rejected the idea that there had been no agreement on the various issues, saying the Tunisians seemed to have some unspecified reason of their own for wanting to cancel."
Super, at least we are seeing the reality of Arab politics now. And Israel sells these clowns as enemies. They can't even get their act together when they're bloody desperate and need some Potemkin response to the Americans. There's a good reason why Arab armies keep getting and will keep getting crushed by anyone with half a bit of discipline.
And then this note: "The Bush administration had made no secret of its desire for the meeting to end with a strong statement backing more open, democratic change in the Middle East. For Washington, an echo of democratic change across a region marked by autocratic governments would help justify the decision to go to war to topple Saddam Hussein.
But Washington got off on the wrong foot when its Middle East proposal, which laid out a blueprint it hoped the Arab states would follow, was leaked before any Arab leader was aware of its contents."
One diplomatic fuck up after another, and they still believe their idiotic ideas of "transformation" via Iraq, which is a complete fucking mess.
I await with increasing impatience for regime change in the US in the desperate hope that something approaching a clue will enter into American policy in regards to this region.
Also see this:
La Tunisie reporte sine die le sommet de la Ligue arabe
LEMONDE.FR | 28.03.04 | 11h23 • MIS A JOUR LE 28.03.04 | 17h22
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3220,36-358717,0.html
Posted by The Lounsbury at March 28, 2004 08:06 PM
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Jan-Jul 2004
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