The Arab League Summit

Much of our future concerns the upcoming Arab League Summit which is to be held here in Baghdad later in March.

The Arab League started out in March of 1945 with six countries: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. It has since grown to 22 nations, including the six mentioned above and also Kuwait, Yemen, Palestine, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Baharain, Oman, Morocco, Dijibouti, Mauritania, Comoros, Somalia, and Tunisia. Its goal is to "draw closer the relations between member states and coordinate collaboration between them, to safeguard independence and soverignty, and to consider in a general way the affairs and interests of Arab countries."

Read all about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_League. (Yup. Wikipedia.)

What is significant about this event is that it is going to be held here in Iraq, which highlights an important thing: Iraq is back in as a leading Arab State and the Government of Iraq stands to benefit greatly in terms of legitimacy if it goes off without a hitch.

I think another significant thing to note is that at first glance the majority of the 22 nations in the Arab League are predominatly Sunni. Should this event go well, it will potentially pull some influence from Iran, which has been garnering dominance in the region for a while. Moqtada al Sadr stands to lose some influence, a good thing in my mind.

Granted, a caveat to the Arab League is that a majority of nations in the Arab League are rioting, so that will no doubt be a challenge for all of them as they wrestle with appeasing populations while still maintaining power.

There is a lot of interest amongst the American leadership here to see how the Iraqis will handle this event. There is also something else interesting to note about the US presence here- We haven't been in Iraq for eight years; we have really been in Iraq eight times for one year at a time (except for some units who were here during the surge, which was a 15 month tour). Each tour is different, has differnt leadership who hasn't had to solve the problems of the position they are currently serving in, and each tour presents a new set of challenges that require different solutions and techniques than previous tours. It is evident that current leadership is playing a bit of catch up.

One of the other Majors in the Squadron was here the same time I was last time (this is actually his fourth tour) and we were discussing the three sets of elections Iraq had when we were here last, as well as the various pilgrimages (Arba'een, Shabaniya) and their security requirements. The Iraqis always had 'a way' for handling these events-- all of the ones we observed went off relatively hitch free during our previous tour, and for the most part they were all Iraqi solutions. They were effective. It is a bit frustrating to see the current leadership -unfamiliar with the dynamics of Baghdad and the way Iraqis execute- negatively react to these events and the way the Iraqis handle them. There is still pressure to get the Iraqis to solve the problem the American way, and anything less than that is unacceptable.

There is also frustration at the higher US levels when the Iraqis don't share their plans with the US forces, which automatically think the Iraqis are screwed up and don't have a plan because it hasn't been shared with them. Iraqis are pretty good at keeping secrets, mostly because they don't tell anyone who needs to know anything until they need to know it, which is usually at the last minute, and then a whole bunch of stuff happens all at once.

All of my skepticism aside, this Arab League Summit being held here is a big deal, and I'm excited to see how it goes.