Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad welcoming his Sudanese counterpart, Omar al-Bashir, in Damascus airport on December 16. Source: the SANA.
Gulf states and Egypt are working to restore Syria’s membership in the Arab League in 2019, the Guardian reported on December 26 citing diplomatic sources. The sources predicted that President Bashar al-Assad will be welcomed on a stage to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and Egypt’s President, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi once again.
In response to this development, Washington is reportedly pressuring both Riyadh and Cairo to hold off on demanding a vote from the league’s 20 other members.
Syria’s membership in the Arab League was frozen in November of 2011 after the failure of the Arab initiative to stop the war in the country. Back then, many local observers said that the step was taken after pressure from the U.S. and Western countries.
Earlier this month, Sudan’s President, Omar al-Bashir, became the first Arab leader to visit Syria and meet with Assad since the outbreak of the Syrian war. Later, Head of the Syrian National Security Bureau, Ali Mamlouk, paid an official visit to Egypt upon an invitation from Abbas Kamel, director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate.
Both visits were likely a part of the ongoing efforts to restore the Syrian relations with other regional states. After failing to shift Damascus policies with force, Arab countries may hope that providing the war torn country with political and economic support may drive it away from Tehran.
Arab league? What Arab league? Where are these lying and servile “Arabs” where the Yemen war is concerned? These Arab “leaders” should be locked up for crimes against humanity in Yemen, and slavery to the US/EU/NATO/Israeli masters. The cheek of it!. In any case it is none of the USEE, US Evil Empire’s business. In fact, free Syria should start its own proper Arab Federation from Morocco to Iraq and from Syria to Yemen (based exactly like the US itself) and invite the Arab people to join after they get rid of the US/Israeli collaborators that rule their country. It is Syria and Assad that has shown the meaning of Arab freedom and dignity. Stuff the traitorous impostors in Cairo, Riyadh, Khartoum and other slave states. S-O-O-O-R-I-Y-A-A-A-A!!!
The Arab league has always been a power play between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia reigned for decades but now they have overplayed their hand and nobody in the Arab world trusts them anymore to champion the Arabs. Egypt is on the rise and if they manage to pick the winners in Libya and defuse the conflict with Iran then they’ll be king for a bit. (And Saudi Arabia might very well descent into civil war.)
I kind of doubt the old-school Arab League (independent) is ever coming back, at least as long as the U.S. has any say about it. Syria will actually be a good litmus test. If Syria is actually allowed back in, then the Arab NATO scheme has also fallen apart and the Arab League isn’t totally under control of outside interests.
Not sure about Egypt’s place in the Arab League – interesting observation, though.
Nothing wrong with the idea of an Arab League, but U.S. neocons are still fantasizing about an Arab NATO obedient to western/US/Israeli interests and dependent on arms and equipment from them. The Arab League could still be manipulated to serve that purpose and has been in the cross-hairs of ZATO for a long time. Any Arab League that they don’t control is (in their minds) a threat.
The U.S. (and western cronies) have already bought and paid for stooges in the Arab League. Any Arab nation that was potentially a member but whose leadership was seriously disobedient has already been regime-changed – save for Syria and Assad.
The U.S. and Israel do not want Syria or Assad to be part of any Arab League or Arab NATO. That would sort of defeat the purpose of allowing/encouraging it to exist in order to control it. If MbS or his MbZ handlers are feeling rebellious, they might push for Syria’s inclusion just to stick it to the U.S. – I doubt they would do it out of any real sense of Arab nationalism or unity. ‘Arab unity’ being synonymous with ‘Saudi control’ to MbS.
Saudi Arabia is broke. They are burning through their reserves at around $6-10 billion a month. And their reserves are as low as $350 billion to $500 billion. They can’t re-organise because they build a boat that doesn’t steer and the population won’t allow it. The best bet for the US is now to get into Egypt which will only make the demise of Saudi Arabia as the prime player so much quicker. Geom etc had a small chance before the prince decided to murder a critic but that bridge has been burned now. There will be no major investors.
Yup, like predicted the Sudan visit was a glimpse of Egypt slowly forcing out Saudi Arabia as ‘leader’ of the Arab league. Syria being welcomed back in the fold would be the logical next step. After that they’ll back the LNA in Libya as a united body. Then they’ll make a deal with Iran and the US would cease to be a power in the Arab world.
Hope it will work well, Bashar is a diplomat
A cesspool is what the Arab League is. A place where snakes meet. Assad will lose nothing by not attending although it is true that it is better to have your enemies as close as possible.
The Arab league is the main reason the war is winding down and your don’t want Assad to negotiate with them, well it’s too late, what do you think they’ve been doing for over 12 months already. The Arab league are the ones who just saved Assad and Syria, it’s because of them things are cooling down here, you should be thanking the Arab league, not condemning them for helping. The Arab league wants to break the US’s dominion over them now, not maintain it, they’re actively rebelling against the US and relying more and more on Russia lately, which is good for everyone in the region but Israel. The Arab league were the ones who demanded that Assad be given a green light to take back all of southern Syria during the Daraa/Quneitra campaign, that only happened because of the Arab League, that was the Arab league using their collective bargaining power to exert their will on the US and Israel, not the other way around.
That may be so, but they didn’t help Libya very much eh?
True, some of them were even happy about it, but things have changed since then, even the blind can now see, and what they see they don’t like, the US/Israeli relationship is the cause of the Arab nations being so dysfunctional, they want to change that now. I’ve said in other posts, first Syria, then Libya, then Yemen, and maybe even Afghanistan, things are changing, and they started changing last year, not that many media sources thought it was important enough to share it with the rest of us. But I’ve been sharing the info since last year, or close to it, but I’ve also added that what it really meant was, the war in Syria was already over back in January, even though they still haven’t finished fighting yet, and I still think the war is really over and finished, it’s just Erdogan who hasn’t realized it yet.
It is hard to agree that the Arab League “wants to break the US’s dominion over them…” when we have Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries in league with the US. Jordan is no different and even Iraq has American troops -now even more than in the past because those who were in Syria have been deployed across the border. Do you really think that the Arab countries have just realized that “…the US/Israeli relationship is the cause of the Arab nations being so dysfunctional…” The elites knew this from the beginning, but they haven’t done anything because they are either bought or have interests that go beyond the respect for their interests (let’s not forget that Bahrain is the headquarters of the Fifth Fleet, Qatar has the largest US air force base -Al Udeid, plus the petrodollar agreement with SA of course).
The proofs in the pudding, our eyes don’t lie. King abdullah of Jordan was one of the first to break with US policy, the rest followed soon after. Iraq though a member of the Arab League is aligned to Iran, so is Syria and Lebanese Hezbollah, and Yemen was also beginning to switch to the Iranian side before the civil war erupted, they all make up part of the 2 block system in the Arab league, 20 countries in all. Prior to the war the Saudis led the Sunni block and they were all aligned to US policy concerning the region, but that’s all changed since the start of the war. The Saudis are no longer leading the Sunni block, the rest of the Sunni countries rebelled against their leadership and are pursuing their own agenda’s now. The new Sunni block wants to end the war in Syria, and they also want to repair the rift between the Shia and Sunni countries, that the Saudis/US/Israelis have been encouraging for many years. They want to make money but they can’t when the war is still raging, they can’t have free trade or security either, they have to end the war in Syria because they can’t afford it anymore. Since before January last year we can see the changes in the Arab League’s policies towards Syria, the Saudi/US/Israeli relationship, and Iran. It began making overtures to Assad, trying to pull him away from the Iranian sphere of influence, it also began trying to mend the rift between the Saudis and the Iranians, but found it was the Saudis causing all the problems, it then gave the Iranians a stronger voice in the Arab league and started IGNORING US/Saudi demands, and eventually by the beginning of the year, had also convinced the US/Israel/EU, to change their policy towards Syria/Assad. By June they’d given Assad and Russia the green light to attack Daraa and Quneitra unmolested, but there was only one person they couldn’t convince to agree to that, and it was Erdogan. Turkey is an observer country in the Arab League, though they aren’t a Arabic country, they would still like to align themselves to the large block of Arab nations. If you google search for the Arab league and their policies statements from Jan onwards, and also check which political overtures were made to who and by whom, and also where their delegations were sent to and came from, since January this year, I’m sure you’ll see why I say what I do, it’s all in black and white, nothing was hidden, it’s all there to see by anyone who wants to look, the US controlled media didn’t make a big deal over it, but it was a big deal that should have been making the headline news every single day. I posted on SF many times about the changes as they happened but no one else seemed to find the news interesting, which surprised me, I kept saying this meant an end to the war in Syria and a massive change for regional politics, but everyone else seemed to disagree it was important, GOD ONLY KNOWS WHY. The Arab League have changed forever now, they’re not going to allow themselves to be divided again, they’re all pursuing a collective policy now, and even the Saudis have to comply to the new reality or face isolation. cheers.
willingconsciencethetruths 3+
I only hope this is so, but geopolitics is a mutiedged knife. What we see is often only the tip of the iceberg. All of the developments you have described may be taking place, but there are strong forces in the opposite direction too. As I said, for the sake of so many millions who have suffered so much, the light at the end of the tunnel may be close.
They make it sound like it just happened, but this was happening before January this year, these guys are the main reason the war in Syria is coming to an end. In most cases the US is the one holding the carrot tied to the end of a stick and dangling it in front of the hungry donkey, as well as having a whip in the other hand just in case the carrot doesn’t work, but this time the donkey [donkeys] actually ignored the carrot and put up with the whip, and they laid a big crap at the feet of the wagon driver in protest. Assad was the one the donkeys ended up heading too, the load he had for them to bear was a lot lighter than the one the US and Israel were going to load them up with. King Abdullah was the first donkey to break ranks but most of the rest followed soon enough, he may have been a big part of the problem in the beginning, but now he’s become the main reason it’s ending. That still doesn’t quite make up for his lack of judgement early on, but if he develops a workable relationship with Assad now, and puts the US’s interests second to the Arab leagues regional interests and more importantly his own country’s interests, he may get back in the good books.
Arab league puppets serve as Britain and France watch dogs.Oppress own brothers for US Dollars.Betray and expelling own brothers to be destroy by Nato.Currently own Yemeni brothers are killed by them and their masters British and France.Yemeni brothers are starving by their France and British license war.Today Arabs and France and Britain are sitting in palaces with aircon and lots of clean water and food.Celebrating their self dated Christmas while elderly,children, women and men are starving and bomb by their armies.Their call God but killed the very same one’s which God created and love.Sickness and hiding from bullets and missiles are day treatment for Yemeni and Syrian people while May,Macroni,Merkel, Trump, and associates sits in safety and protection and call God God while killing human beings like flies.Their regards their own dogs more worthy then human life.