Bashir in Qatar for Summit

The Arab summit will seek to give backing to Sudan over the international arrest warrant for its president and ease a deep rift among Arab states over how to deal with ascendant Shi’ite power Iran.

Arab governments have struggled to respond to Iran’s political clout since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, bringing long oppressed Shi’ite Muslims there to power.

The leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia see Iran’s hand behind the strength of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories -- Islamist groups who refuse to renounce armed action in the historic Arab conflict with Israel.

Other Arab countries with good ties to Iran, such as Syria and Qatar, back the populist view in the Arab world that the policies of Hezbollah and Hamas are legitimate responses to Israel, which rejects returning Arab lands it seized in 1967.

Israel’s recent war on Gaza exposed the divisions, with Qatar hosting a crisis summit that brought together Arab leaders plus Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and leading figures from Hamas. The meeting threatened to revoke an Arab peace proposal to Israel, championed by Washington’s Arab allies.

Regional heavyweights

Egypt and Saudi Arabia refused to attend, saying an economic summit of Arab leaders that had already been planned before the Gaza war would suffice. Egypt is the Arab world’s most populous country and Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest exporter of oil and the birthplace of Islam, making them regional heavyweights.

“The Doha summit is still a battleground between the emerging de facto alliance between Qatar, Syria and Iran, on one side, and the Saudis, Egyptians and Jordanians, on the other,” said Ali al-Ahmed, a US-based Saudi opposition figure. It was not clear if any Iranian officials would attend as observers.

Plans by Qatar and Arab League chief Amr Moussa to make the meeting a reconciliation summit were spoiled by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s surprise decision not to attend -- apparently over continuing rancour at the Gaza summit chaos.

The Egyptian and Saudi leaders pulled out of last year’s summit in Damascus in protest at Syria’s backing for Hezbollah in Lebanon, which they believe was done at Iran’s bidding. (Reuters)