Saudi Arabia is rolling out the purple carpet to leaders from across the Arab world who will gather in the coastal city of Jeddah this Friday for their annual Arab Summit meeting to tackle regional challenges.
This year, the summit comes amid signs that the oil-rich Kingdom is increasingly using its enormous wealth, its rapidly rising soft power, and its newly assertive diplomacy to play a regional leadership role.
Over the last few years, Saudi Arabia has displayed its economic and diplomatic power at full strength in a bid to make the Kingdom central to global and regional geopolitics.
Yet, whether the upcoming Arab Summit will boost Saudi Arabia’s regional clout or signal a new Middle East order with the Kingdom at its helm remains uncertain.
The summit comes in the aftermath of the China-mediated Saudi-Iranian rapprochement after years of tension that the Kingdom hopes will give a further push to its regional peak trajectory.
It also comes against a worrying backdrop of several regional crises, raising questions about the Kingdom’s ability to overcome the conflicts that underpin the existing regional system and its norms and institutions.
The days before the summit were marked by a flare-up in the Gaza Strip as Israel and Palestinian fighters continued one of their worst violent confrontations in years.
The escalation by Israeli air strikes and barrages of rockets fired from Gaza was yet another grim reminder that the stakes remain high as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lingers. It is not clear, however, how the Arab leaders will respond to the stalemate and whether it will have impacts on peace-making with Israel.
The Arab leaders are also meeting as fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the country’s paramilitary Rapid Deployment Forces (RDF) continues to rage for the fourth week, fuelling fears of a wider conflict.
Apart from a symbolic agreement on the treatment of civilians, talks mediated by the US and Saudi Arabia have failed to persuade the two warring parties to end the conflict or even reach a longer-term ceasefire.
Saudi Arabia conducted a rescue operation to lift foreigners trapped in the fighting out of Sudan and considers itself as a mediator in the conflict. The Kingdom is a member of the Quad group, which includes the UAE, the UK and the US, and it is supporting a transition to a civilian-led government.
The Jeddah Summit will also mark the readmission of Syria to the Arab League after 12 years of shunning Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and the culmination of years of long efforts to re-engage with him.
The League last week lifted the suspension of Syria’s membership, imposed after the crackdown on street protests against Al-Assad that led to the Civil War in Syria in 2011.
Riyadh had been a key backer of Syrian armed opposition groups attempting to overthrow the embattled Al-Assad regime, but in recent weeks it has reopened its embassy in Damascus and resumed a normal relationship.
Saudi Arabia has invited Al-Assad to the summit, and if he attends and is seen shaking hands with his Arab counterparts, the move will be significant in terms of ending his political isolation.
Arab summits aim to be venues for leaders to exchange ideas about current affairs and are usually marred by divisions and rivalries. Their statements are often big on hyperbole and short on rigour and substance.
Still, they have a long history of always being used by their host countries to generate favourable headlines and boost their regimes’ regional prestige and domestic standing.
This year’s gathering, however, will see the spotlight on whether it will be a significant milestone in Saudi efforts to remake its regional policies in line with its emerging economic and political power.
Saudi Arabia has been a regional powerhouse for a long stretch of the Middle East’s modern history, but in order for it to lead the region it needs to be a major player in terms of policies and practices.
Much hinges on the ability of the Kingdom to build on both its substantial instruments of national power and wealth and its will to use these tools to influence political outcomes around the region.
Saudi Arabia has yet to prove that its de-escalation with Iran is part of a larger foreign policy focus on resolving the proxy conflicts that were behind the rivalry between the two countries, such as in Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon.
The truce in Yemen that was bolstered by the Saudi-Iranian détente may have reversed the escalation, but there is little optimism surrounding the ongoing negotiations to find a solution to the conflict before a deal is reached with the Houthis in Yemen over future relations.
Even though calm was restored to Gaza after last week’s clashes, repeated flare-ups between the Palestinians and Israel along with expansionist policies by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government remain a key challenge standing in the way of a Saudi-Israeli normalisation deal that could be a further boost to the Kingdom’s leadership quest.
In Sudan, the humanitarian pledge brokered by Saudi Arabia with US help has yet to translate into a resolution of the conflict. It will need a lot of Saudi investment and engagement to get the warring sides to reach an agreement before Sudan spirals into a protracted war.
The Syrian crisis is not less complicated than the other challenges to Saudi diplomacy, even though the Kingdom has spearheaded the bid to re-embrace the Al-Assad regime into the Arab fold. The underlying reason for this is that Saudi Arabia hopes that closer ties with Al-Assad would convince him to cut down his ties with Iran.
Meanwhile, Al-Assad wants Syria’s reinstatement in the Arab League to clear the way to end his isolation and readmit him to the world stage. He also wants wealthy Arab nations to foot the bill for rebuilding his devastated country.
But with the US, Europe, and the UN determined to keep Al-Assad in check and insisting on maintaining the sanctions on his regime, the building of closer relations with Damascus can hardly be seen as a breakthrough.
It is highly unlikely that normalisation could peel Al-Assad away from Iran, which he depends on for military and economic support. Last week, Iran and Syria vowed to strengthen ties as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi wrapped up a visit to Syria.
While there is little prospect of a durable resolution to Syria’s political crisis, doubts are also abundant about Al-Assad’s willingness to allow millions of Syrian refugees back home as his Arab neighbours hope.
The Arab Summit, therefore, may be a performative event for Saudi Arabia and one in which it can unfurl its glamorous lavender coloured carpets for its guests and flaunt its influence, but its ambitious leadership trajectory remains a subject of debate among Middle East watchers.
In order to lead the region, Saudi Arabia will have to both show the ability to overcome the present convergence of challenges and disputes and to invest heavily in building a common and prosperous future for its peoples.
Hence, the perception that the Saudi rise signals a new Middle East order or vice versa could be only speculative as long as the region remains beset by problems and conflicts, raising questions as to whether the Kingdom is able to manage such challenges in the spirit of cooperation and constructive engagement.
Saudi Arabia announced a new aid policy in January that will stop direct “grants and deposits” without strings attached, raising the alarm in cash-strapped countries in the region. It is unclear how the new policy will affect Saudi Arabia’s regional strategy and its political alliances with other Arab nations.
The Jeddah Summit will allow Saudi Arabia to assume the presidency of the Arab League for a year, and all eyes will be on Riyadh, waiting to see if it will translate this symbolic position into concrete plans to use its newly acquired political and economic position to play an egalitarian and effective role in the region.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 18 May, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: