One of Ours

Arab governments were in disarray on Sunday after the Arab League summit meeting, set to grapple with vital regional issues like democratic reform, Arab-Israeli bloodshed and the American occupation of Iraq, was abruptly called off just before it was to open Monday. The exact reason is a matter of some dispute, but all sides viewed the meeting's collapse — even as some heads of state were on their way — as an embarrassment. It was a stark public admission that the commitment to change voiced by Arab leaders risks becoming just more words...

...The very idea of reform remains too divisive, and many nations' governments have yet to decide how to deal themselves with issues like elections...

...Foreign ministers said they were exploring possible dates in April. Tunisia still objected, however, saying the problem was the issues, not the setting. Given the the American invasion of Iraq, and spiral of violence in the region, including terrorist bomb attacks from Casablanca to Riyadh, there had been some expectation that Arab leaders might commit themselves to change...

...represented in stark colors the Arab world's inability to cope with American efforts to redraw the region's political map. "You feel they are completely lost," said Mr. Khairallah, the political commentator. "The Arab League is finally feeling the impact of the fall of Baghdad. It took them a whole year." A reluctance to take the first step toward reform was evident in the two days of preparatory talks about the agenda, which bogged down in details like how to present Arab culture at the Frankfurt book fair next fall...

...Tunisia pulled the plug, announcing that it would not preside over a gathering willing to make what it called only a tepid commitment to reform...

...the general consensus had divided into two broad groups, participants said. One group was made up of those who wanted to resist what was seen as a fiat from the Bush administration for the Arab League to push for sweeping changes. The other group included those who said the call for change was not a Washington monopoly and that a wider demand for greater democracy had to be addressed...

...Tunisian officials denied acting in pique, saying they merely wanted the summit meeting's final communiqué to be something of substance. Three hundred fifty million Arabs want a sense that the repression that scars their region is ending, the Tunisians maintained. "The Arab world will not advance unless it faces to this reality," said an Arab diplomat familiar with the Tunisian assessment. "It's not just the paper you field; it's the attitude."...

...Arab foreign ministers lined up Sunday to criticize Tunisia, and there were broad hints from analysts that its president must have come back from a visit to Washington earlier this year with specific instructions to wreck the summit meeting...."To fail to even hold a meeting is a disaster, taking into consideration all the challenges of the region," said Hoshar Zubairy, the Iraqi foreign minister. "This encourages extremism, when people see that even the formal Arab system is not functioning, not operating. The sense of frustration will only deepen."