More specifically, the New York Times quotes an unnamed diplomat as saying "The Syrians acted as if
they want to turn the tables on the whole summit.'' The Times also quoted Arab diplomats as saying
that Syria sought to block proposals for political reform and for endorsing Libya's move to abandon
its weapons of mass destruction programs. Syria also wanted to block a summit declaration advancing
the 2002 Saudi peace initiative initiative, according to these sources quoted in the Times. Saudi
Crown Prince Abdulla had already developed a severe case of diplomatic flu and announced with regret
that he would not be attending the conference.

Egypt, and the Palestinians had been very anxious for the summit to convene. President Mubarak of Egypt wanted the summit to approve a resolution that would initiate an "all-Arab" reform initiative that would compete with the American Greater Middle East initiative, and would most likely be empty of content. The Palestinians wanted a strong resolution about the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yasin, head of the Hamas terrorist group.

Subsequently, Egypt has offered to host the summit, and Egyptian President Mubarak has met other Arab leaders in Sharm al-Sheikh in order to try to prepare an agenda for the summit, but he returned to Cairo on Thursday unexpectedly, before meeting with Syrian and Sudanese leaders.

The collapse of the summit seems to indicate that Arab leaders cannot even agree on a watered-down reform and democracy plan to compete with the American plan, or perhaps they cannot agree regarding a new peace initiative.

Ami Isseroff