Syria endgame: No transition without Assad leaving

What was Syria troubleshooter Lakhdar Brahimi cooking with senior U.S. and Russian officials in Geneva yesterday?

Apparently fish – and the editor-in-chief of the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat doesn’t like the unpleasant odor.

Brahimi and Assad (top) and Lavrov and Clinton

Tariq Alhomayed suspects the three sides are working on a “distorted Yemen template” for the endgame in Syria that would keep President Bashar al-Assad in place until 2014.

Brahimi said in a statement the meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns was “constructive and held in a spirit of cooperation.

“It explored avenues to move forward a peaceful process and mobilize greater international action in favor of a political solution to the Syrian crisis.

“All three parties reaffirmed their common assessment that the situation in Syria was bad and getting worse. They stressed that a political process to end the crisis in Syria was necessary and still possible.”

Sunday's meeting followed talks held last week in Dublin between Brahimi, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at which the three officials agreed on the urgent need to initiate a political process to end the conflict in Syria.

Participants at yesterday's meeting agreed that a political solution would be based on the core elements of the communiqué issued by the Action Group that met in Geneva on June 30.

The communiqué called for “The establishment of a transitional governing body, which can establish a neutral environment in which the transition can take place. That means that the transitional governing body would exercise full executive powers. It could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent.” (See full text of the communiqué in my June 30 post, “Syria Action Group leaves open Assad question”)

The Action Group is made up of the UN and Arab League secretaries-general; the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council and of Turkey, Qatar, Iraq and Kuwait; and the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy.

In his leader for today’s edition of Asharq Alawsat, which I paraphrase below, Alhomayed writes:

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby promises the Syria crisis is drawing to an end.

The Qataris in turn are optimistic about an American-Russian rapprochement regarding Syria following the Geneva meeting.

So what’s happening?

Sources tell me a Russian proposal is on the table whereby a transitional government is set up. Assad would have no powers over it and it would exclude anyone from his regime whose hands are stained with Syrian blood.

A prominent member of the opposition would head such a transitional government. Accordingly, Assad would stay put in Damascus until 2014. He would not run in the 2014 presidential elections. He would simply call it a day and go home. That’s the scenario I heard.

Of course, the Russians keep reiterating their stance on Syria.

So my question is: If the Russians are not changing their position, insisting they are not holding talks on the fate of embattled Assad, why are the Americans and Brahimi meeting with them? Why are the Qataris and Elaraby optimistic?

Elaraby says he hopes the U.S. and Russia can reconcile their views over Syria in order to prepare a resolution for the UN Security Council, which “will send a clear message to the (Assad) regime that it is no longer protected.” He also says the Syrian opposition could be a substitute for the regime in due time.

So what justifies the optimism and the statements if the Russian position remains unchanged?

In light of the aforesaid, there’s obviously an attempt to apply in Syria today the Gulf template used in Yemen. But the template has been distorted, presumably to preempt Assad’s recourse to chemical weapons.

Obviously, it is a waste of time if in fact Brahimi and the American and Russian officials are considering a transitional government that keeps Assad at the helm until 2014.

That would also be an effort to absolve Assad of all the crimes he committed, instead of showing him the door.

Syrians would find it adequate if Assad’s exit to this or that safe haven were synchronized with the kickoff of the transition.

But waiting until 2014 means bailing out Assad and recognizing him as president despite the death toll on his watch. Such a solution is surely unenforceable.

A solution that sees Assad stepping down and staying in Syria – à la Abdullah Saleh, who stayed in Yemen after standing down as president – is also totally unacceptable.

With the Free Syrian Army now positioned at the doorsteps of Damascus, and Assad’s regime on its knees, it is difficult to fathom a solution to the Syria crisis that does not see Assad hitting the road – not in one or two years, but now.

Syria: Exit Annan, enter Lakhdar Brahimi?

Lakhdar Brahimi

I nominate former Algerian foreign minister and ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi to succeed Kofi Annan as troubleshooter for Syria.

Before giving my reasons for making the nomination, I solemnly declare that I have no inside information or tipoff from anybody and that no one asked for my opinion.

In fact, putting my unsolicited nomination in print is at odds with what I was taught by my three mass media mentors – namely, James Batal, an Amherst College graduate and a Neiman Fellow in Journalism from Harvard University; Tom Masterson, Beirut Bureau chief of The Associated Press; and Kamel Mroue, uncontested pioneer of the modern-day Lebanese press.

In initiating the saga of my journalism and publishing journey, all three used to focus on such classics as “dog bites man versus man bites dog,” the Five Ws in newsgathering and – above all -- the difference between objective news and personal opinion.

My excuse for putting forward in print Lakhdar Brahimi’s name to succeed Kofi Annan is that I am doing so as a blogger entitled to his personal opinion, and not as a journalist.

Annan, after tendering his resignation this week, would not speculate on who might replace him but sought to counter suggestions that with his departure, the peace effort was over.

“Let me say that the world is full of crazy people like me, so don’t be surprised if someone else decides to take it on,” Annan told reporters in Geneva.

Brahimi is not exactly one of the world’s crazy people and I don’t even know if UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby will throw his name into the hat.

What I know is that he has all the credentials as a peacemaker to take over where Annan left.

He has served as UN and Arab League diplomat, is a veteran conflict mediator and an expert in post-conflict reconstruction, brokered Lebanon’s 1989 Taef Agreement that involve Syria and is fluent in English, French and -- obviously but most importantly -- Arabic.

Like Annan, he is one of The Elders.

Chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The Elders is an independent group of global leaders who work together for peace and human rights. Nelson Mandela, who is not an active member of the group but remains an Honorary Elder, brought the group together in 2007.

The Elders are Martti Ahtisaari, Ela Bhatt, Lakhdar Brahim, Gro Brundtland, Fernando H. Cardoso, Jimmy Carter, Graça Machel, Mary Robinson, Desmond Tutu and Kofi Annan.

The Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was also an Honorary Elder, until her election to the Burmese parliament last April.

You can read biographies for Lakhdar Brahimi on Wikipedia and The Fondation Chirac or the U.S./Middle East Project, Inc. websites.

I chose this but from The Fondation Chirac:

Born in Algeria in 1934, he studied law and political science in Algeria and France. During the Algerian War of Independence (1956-1962), he was a representative of the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) in Southeast Asia. At twenty-two, he represented the Algerian revolution in Jakarta. At the time, Indonesia’s President was Sukarno, one of the fathers of non-alignment and the struggle against colonialism.

From 1963 to 1970, Lakhdar Brahimi was the Permanent Representative to the League of Arab States in Cairo. Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1971 to 1979, he then became the Diplomatic Advisor to the President of Algeria from 1982 to 1984 in Egypt and Sudan. Afterwards, he became Assistant Secretary General of the Arab League between 1984 and 1991.

In 1989 as Special Envoy of the Tripartite Committee of the Arab League in Lebanon, Brahimi successful negotiated the agreement that ended seventeen years of civil war: the Taef Agreement.

Algeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1991 to 1993, he was the UN Conference Rapporteur on Environment and Development in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro.

In 1993, Lakhdar Brahimi embarked upon his second career in the UN, following Boutros Boutros Ghali’s proposal to make him his “special representative”. He was sent first to South Africa, where he led the United Nations’ Observer Mission from 1993 until Nelson Mandela’s election to power in 1994. Then he was sent to Haiti from 1994 to 1996. The last year, he was sent on UN missions for open or latent conflicts in Nigeria, Cameroon, Burundi, and Sudan. Finally, he was sent to Afghanistan from 1997 to 1999 and again in 2001. He led the panel that wrote the “Brahimi Report” on UN peacekeeping operations in 2000.

He is one of “The Elders”, a group of international leaders established in the early 21st century to promote the peaceful resolution of conflicts around the world.

Deferral of the Syrian file until autumn

Free Syrian Army men walk UN observer through Homs 

This think piece by Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, general manager of Saudi-owned Alarabiya TV news channel, appears today in Arabic:

By summer’s end, 300 UN observers will be recording their findings. The finding everyone knows already is that regime forces use violence. They fire at protesters and pound their neighborhoods.

Some observers will say there are armed gangs, failing to acknowledge that people are defending themselves inside their neighborhoods.

UN Security Council deliberations won’t resume until post-August. This means spring and summer will pass before the Security Council meets to consider the observers’ report. The same arguments will be used when trying to reach a consensus as to whether the Syrian regime is using the violence or not.

We all know the regime is using not violence but extermination. It’s the word used by French President Nicolas Sarkozy a few days ago when he said Assad forces are seeking to “wipe Homs from the map.”

The residential areas of Homs are pounded even though no fighters are there – not since Baba Amr, Khaldiya and Bayyada were blitzed. The aim is to drive away Homs’ population.

Tragedy is regime forces don’t suffice with destroying neighborhoods. They chase fleeing civilians. This doesn’t happen only in the Homs district or along the borders with Turkey. It happens everywhere… Syrians are killed or arrested when staying put and pursued when fleeing to seek refuge.

The UN gives the regime three months’ grace without saying what comes next. All we know is that Security Council meetings will be held in September to consider the UN monitors’ report. Then What?

In a best-case scenario, a vote would take place on a draft resolution penalizing the Syrian regime. The vote will almost certainly produce a Russian veto. The monitors’ mission will come to nothing.

With death and destruction persisting, the Security Council will likely hold follow-up sessions in December, when year-end holidays begin.

Pragmatically, the situation cannot wait for the peaceful settlement being promoted by the Arab League secretary-general. He is mistaken. The day will come when people won’t forgive what he did and said.

We discern a deliberate measure by a number of Arab and foreign countries to save the Syrian regime. The same nations that gave the regime cash, arms, men, time and media support have so far failed to stifle the Syrian revolution.

The Syrian public won’t coexist with this regime. The regime won’t give up power. So how can you expect a political settlement, as Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby professes?

The only conventional but untested solution is to enable Syrians to defend themselves. It’s the only way to rein in the Syrian regime’s brutal military and security machine. It is also the only way to persuade Russia and the rest to give up on their man in Damascus.

“Annan and Elaraby co-star in new Syria comedy”

Annan and Elaraby (Photo from statesman.com)

Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general recently named joint UN-Arab League Special Envoy to Syria, arrives in Damascus tomorrow, Saturday, for troubleshooting talks with President Bashar al-Assad.

Abdul Rahman al-Rashed -- managing director of Alarabiya TV and a media powerhouse in the Saudi establishment --sees Annan embarking on another farcical mission masterminded by none other than Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby.

Rashed, writing today in Arabic for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, explains why:

The Arab League learned nothing from the harm inflicted on the Syrian people by dint of Sudanese Lt.-Gen. Mohammed Ahmed al-Dabi’s scandalous mission. The scandal of the observer mission helped bail out the Syrian regime with a distorted Dabi report meant to cover regime crimes by saying protesters were killers, the same as the government.

Dabi’s final report helped Russia’s UN representative justify his veto at the Security Council, giving Assad forces a green light to use heavy weapons in killing Syrian civilians.

The League is now coming back with a bigger farce. It recalled former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan from retirement – probably his first invite since leaving his office at UN headquarters in New York – in order to join the Syria mediation mission. Like Dabi before, Annan’s past is tainted by prewar Iraq’s oil-for-food program.

Unfortunately, the Arab League under Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby is the Trojan Horse executing Iranian and Russian orders. Theatrical missions concocted by the Arab League simply succeed in covering up the Syrian regime criminal tracks and in making world public believe the organization is not sure who is killing whom in Syria and has an Arab solution up its sleeve.

The solution the Arab League secretary-general raves about is the Iranian solution. He proposes cooperation between the regime and the opposition to keep Assad as president managing the security and military services, and to give the opposition a share in government ministries.

Whoever is familiar with the regime knows that even the position of prime minister is valueless.

In practice, the negotiations venture espoused by Elaraby and the negotiations framework he devised – even if successful – are totally unacceptable to the Syrian people, as they would keep all pillars of the regime in place. Elaraby would have gotten Annan out of bed to bring about more bloodshed.

The regime in Damascus will deem the Annan mission to be a second authorization from Elaraby to conclude the killings. That’s because the regime believes fruition of the mission in say six months or more would only mean conceding some ministerial portfolios, such as Trade, Agriculture and Communications.

The deliberate or induced backstabbing practiced by Elaraby is worse than the Syrian regime’s wrongdoings. That’s the painful and heartbreaking truth.

By co-opting their schemes, Elaraby allowed the Russians and Iranians to forestall the shaky Syrian regime’s collapse. He blocked the opportunity to punish the regime and boot Syria out of the Arab League as its overwhelming majority agreed four months ago.

Blame for such shameful roles will fall on the Arab League after the regime’s demise.

Elaraby and his league will then face mothers and relatives of thousands of victims who are aware that he caused the death of their loved ones.

What’s happening in Syria has nothing to do with conspiracies as his circles claim. Only one fact explains the bloody violence: The Syrian regime’s criminal nature is such that it is mounting genocidal operations, deliberately and mercilessly. It is killing civilians as well as whole families, including women and children, simply to take revenge and intimidate.

The conspiracy is not in toppling a brutal regime but in supporting it.

The “Friends of Syria” charade in Tunis

(Photo from aljazeera.net)

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud el-Feisal walked out last night from the "Friends of Syria" conference in Tunis, deeming it a washout.

Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, the general manager of Saudi-owned Alarabiya TV, follows through this morning with this op-ed penned in Arabic for the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat:  

I can see Syrian President Bashar al-Assad wreathed in smiles watching another failed conference.

He is right to make fun of us. A year of farcical meetings passed without any organization, power or nation in the world challenging his doings.

While his tanks brazenly pound cities, we suffice with argumentative meetings.

Syria’s state-run TV was relaying statements of the “Friends of Syria” conference in Tunis without qualms since the statements were conveying frustrating messages to the blockaded Syrians.

It would have been a pertinent conference for people hit by famine or an earthquake, not people facing death by heavy weapons every day.

Assad is wreathed in smiles as he sees world demands retrogressing. He is now entreated to agree a pause in the fighting for two hours each day to allow relied aid in to the needy.

In addition, the Tunisian president offered to receive the Syrian president and his family in Tunis. It sounded like Tunisia’s own Zine El Abidine Ben Ali or Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh being under siege waiting for a travel ticket or a visa.

Why would Assad accept the Tunisian president’s invitation and leave Damascus when no one is daring him militarily except thousands of unarmed protesters in the full view of the world media.

The utmost letdown was to hear Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby say the Arab plan is the only solution – one allowing Assad to cling to power and dangle a morsel of meat by co-opting government ministers from the opposition.

This is Syria’s sad tale: yearlong meetings, conferences, solutions and plans while thousands of people get killed, wounded or detained. It’s the sad tale of a population under siege for a year with no letup.

Worse still, the siege is two-pronged: internal and external. The population is prevented from receiving outside help and is prohibited from requesting international intervention.

The Arab League too remains close-fisted, denying even a chair to the people’s representative. Nor has the League offered any kind of assistance to the population, whether civilian or military. Meantime, Russian and Iranian warships continue plying the waters of the Syrian coast to supply the regime with weapons, men or cash without hindrance or objection.

What’s the solution then?

The only way to protect the Syrian people is either through international military intervention to stop the massacres, as was the case in Bosnia and Libya, or through arming the population to defend itself. All other options will perpetuate the crisis and condone the regime massacres.

Humanitarian corridors won’t stop the regime killings. They would simply help tend the wounds of the victims.

Of course, we are all concerned about arming the population. But there is no other choice.

The Arabs lack the muscle. Turkey and NATO don’t want to intervene either, and the Russians are bent on blocking any Security Council resolution mandating international intervention.

All this leaves one solution: arming the Syrian groups by all ways and means. The right of self-defense of person, property and honor does not require endorsement by the Security Council or anyone else.

The League, Turkey and Syria’s Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse illustration from Wikipedia

By Abdul Rahman al-Rashed  *

Many people’s hopes the Arab League is the doorway to a Syria solution were shattered over the past four months. The League, knowingly or stupidly, aborted solitary international initiatives, purposefully shut out Turkey and dragged out management of the crisis for months. Lastly, it gave the Assad regime an exoneration report on the Arab observer mission blaming violence on the dead and their families. How and why?

Though puzzling, the League’s contradictory positions revealed two camps in its ranks on the Syria issue.

The League’s position was originally proactive. Eight months into the crackdown, it stood ready to adopt the strongest sanction against the Syrian regime. Expulsion is the most potent measure the League could take against any of its member-states.

On November 12, the Council of Arab League Foreign Ministers decided to suspend membership of the regime if it did not end its crackdown within a fortnight. Eighteen states voted in favor of the suspension and only two against. (Syria) answered: the League is the West’s pawn… Syria’s ambassador followed up with vulgar language against the League and most of its members, eliciting requests for his expulsion.

We wondered: if the League leadership is unable to even boot out an insolent ambassador, how can it handle a vicious regime?

We did not expel the ambassador and we did not suspend Syria’s membership. We then discovered Assadists had infiltrated the League when the latter’s attitudes, positions and language faltered…

The calamity is the new secretary-general’s leaning toward Damascus. Is it Nabil Elaraby’s inclination or that of official Egypt, which historically formulated the secretary-general’s standpoints? And why would post-revolution Egypt endorse the most hideous and brutal Arab regime? In truth, we found no proof confirming that.

Doubts then hovered around Elaraby’s affinities, since his positions parallel the views of Mohamed Hassanein Heikal who believes events in Libya, and now Syria, are part of a Western conspiracy… This does not make sense either for, even if Elaraby believed in the silly conspiracy theory, he wouldn’t stand behind a doomed regime. But notwithstanding his opinion, Elaraby’s words and his actions have aggrieved and infuriated the Arab street.

Then came the ridiculous idea of deploying Arab monitors to Syria under the command of an intelligence officer from the Sudanese regime of Omar al-Bashir, an ally of Assad. So instead of being the “favorite stallion” to save the Syrian people, the Arab League became Assad’s “Trojan Horse.”

The farce of monitors transpired when the Sudanese head of the observer mission wrote a progress report blaming the violence on the regime and its victims. The Russian used his report to veto the UN Security Council draft resolution on Syria.

Had the League done nothing, the outcome would have been more fitting.

The League has been used to block a European move (on Syria) and to plot against Turkey at the (November 15) League meeting in Rabat, when an “Arab solution” – read that excludes Turkey -- was the option chosen.  The Turks were incensed, saying bluntly, “We leave the matter to you then.” They are aware no nation-state can stand up to the Syrian regime except Turkey.

--------------------------

* The author is head of Alarabiya TV network. He wrote this think piece in Arabic for today’s edition of the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat

Is the Arab League's Nabil Elaraby a quisling?

Elaraby meeting with Assad (photo via allvoices.com)

The gutsy question referring to the head of the Arab League is raised in the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat by non-other than its chief editor, Tariq Alhomayed.

In his editorial today, Alhomayed starts by explaining his reasons for casting doubts on the job performance of Nabil Elaraby before passing his judgment. Here in essence is what he wrote in Arabic this morning:

On July 17, 2011, and in the wake of Elaraby's trip to Syria and the remarks he made after meeting with Bashar al-Assad, I wrote an article saying: "The Syrians were very quick to build on the remarks made by the new Arab League secretary-general, Nabil Elaraby, whose statements could not have been made by someone seasoned in politics."

The 10-month old Syrian revolution has so far claimed some 7,000 lives. Thousands more are either detained or gone missing. But we’re back discussing Nabil Elaraby and his positions on Syria.

Mr. Elaraby defended Assad when he met with him in Damascus last July. He is fully aware nothing changed in the Syrian regime’s behavior since. Yet he persists in making odd and ambiguous decisions seemingly defending Assad.

Even at his last press conference in Cairo, Elaraby did not sound convincing on the new Arab peace initiative. It was Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim who spoke rationally and plainly.

Elaraby continues to sing out of tune. He chose Khaled Meshaal to relay a message to Assad, and Gen. al-Dabi to lead the Arab observer mission. He is now lobbying Egypt’s Mohamed ElBaradei to be his Syria envoy only because Assad could be more amenable to the appointment. That’s because of ElBaradei’s stands on the (2007) raid on Syria’s nuclear facility and on Iran’s nuclear program and his criticisms of the West and the Americans then. Is that a joke or a fact?

With all due respect to ElBaradei, what would he do in Syria? Would he pull out as he did in Egypt (when he dropped his presidency bid)? Would he pass from sight when Syrian demonstrators come under fire as he stayed away from Tahrir Square, presumably not to steal the limelight from the youths there?

All this is puzzling and warrants a legitimate query: So long as Elaraby chose Meshaal and al-Dabi and is now lining up ElBaradei, should we expect him to co-opt Azmi Bishara and Mohamed Hassanein Heikal next?

To answer the question in the headline, Elaraby does not seem to be a quisling. But he is far from understanding the region and its variables. A quisling needs to be smarter for sure.

UN chief on Iran, Assad, Mubarak and Saleh

Raghida Dergham

UN chief Ban Ki-moon says assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists are “terrorist deeds,” adding: “Any assassination of civilians or scientists should be condemned and spurned to uphold human rights.”

Raghida Dergham, U.S.-based senior diplomatic correspondent for pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, today quotes the secretary-general as telling her on the plane from New York to Beirut:

• “The onus is on Iran to prove its nuclear program is in truth for peaceful purposes. They have to prove and substantiate this.”
• Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani told me at our last meeting in New York he would be coming back “together with Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby to brief the Security Council (presumably about the Syria observer mission).” Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “will next week begin to train” Arab observers to Syria. My coordination with Elaraby is ongoing. “I cooperate with him closely and continuously. We consult on how best the UN and Arab League can address this matter.”
• Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “lost his legitimacy and should stop killing his people… And he has to initiate bold reform measures before it is too late,” since “there’s always room for redress so civil war in Syria does not become inevitable.”
• “The current situation in Syria could have serious repercussions on peace and stability in Lebanon.”
• “As a matter of principle,” I would not endorse the call (by prosecutors and civil rights lawyers) for a death sentence for Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak. "The United Nations passed a resolution” declaring a global moratorium on capital punishment.
• Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh “should fully implement the commitment he made to his people alongside the Gulf Cooperation Council.”

Arab League chief and observers lose their way

Arab League observers in Syria and Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby seem to have lost their way.

Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, the Qatari prime minister who heads the Arab League’s Syria task force, tells Aljazeera TV the Arab League observer mission is off-track.

So, the League’s Syria task force will meet Sunday to discuss the mission’s task and decide what to do next. Sheikh Hamad admitted the observer mission lacked experience on the ground, being the first to be mandated to monitor implementation of Arab League resolutions by a member-state. For instance, he said, observers busied themselves with delivering food aid and searching for missing people instead of focusing on their core assignment, which is to monitor implementation by Syrian authorities of the protocol they signed. The protocol calls on Syria to withdraw all tanks and armored vehicles from the streets, stop violence against protesters, release all political prisoners, allow Arab and foreign media and rights groups into the country and begin a dialogue with the opposition.

If the killings do not stop, Sheikh Hamad said, turning to the UN for technical and staffing help for the observer mission would be “a waste of time and engage the League in a fruitless venture.”

The Arab League secretary-general meanwhile dismays Tariq Alhomayed, chief editor of the Saudi newspaper of record Asharq Alawsat. Alhomayed wonders in his editorial today: How can Elaraby ask Khaled Meshaal, the Damascus-based leader of Hamas -- “who was until last year a pawn in Assad’s hand” and “whose movement is funded by Iran” -- to plead with Syria’s Assad to halt violence?

“If this is the standard of the Arab League and the way it is run, we won’t be surprised if it solicited the help of Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah next to dissuade Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz.”