Arab League Set to Meet on Syria

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—The Arab League is due to meet Sunday amid a flourish of diplomatic activity aimed at strengthening the group’s public stance for U.S.-led strikes on Syria.
President Barack Obama’s unexpected announcement Saturday that he would wait to put U.S. military action to the U.S. Congress could change the stance of Arab leaders.
Many Gulf political commentators who had welcomed the U.S. buildup for action expressed dismay Saturday at the U.S. delay. Saudi officials in particular have been pushing for much firmer and sustained international military action against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
The meeting of Arab foreign ministers Sunday, two days earlier than planned, came at the request of Gulf states, Arab League and Saudi government officials said.
The White House has been looking for a firmer public stance from its Arab allies for military intervention in Syria as a response to its alleged use of chemical weapons Aug. 21 that killed more than 1,400 people.
U.S. diplomatic officials have worked across the Middle East to try to win the backing of leaders. Behind the scenes, a senior diplomat in the region said, “our Arab friends are supporting us,” but so far “no one is rushing to sign on.”
“The intelligence is strong but it’s a really tough sell,” another American official in the region said.
It was far from certain that the major diplomatic heavyweights in the region, including Gulf Arab states like Saudi Arabia, can muscle a divided region into agreeing to a statement that supports an attack on a fellow Arab state. Another question is whether the Saudis and other Gulf monarchies will be content with—and publicly support—the current U.S. plan for limited strikes against the Syrian regime
Saudi officials declined to say Saturday what position the kingdom would endorse at Sunday’s meeting.

The gathering would give Arab governments a chance to express their wishes on Syria “especially in light of the failure of the U.N. Security Council to reach a decision on launching a military strike against the Syrian regime,” the Kuwaiti state news agency said, in a statement quoting “well-informed Gulf sources.”
An Arab League meeting last Tuesday on Syria identified Mr. Assad as the culprit in the Aug. 21 attack in a Damascus suburb. The Arab League statement out of that meeting, however, stuck to long-standing Arab demands that action against Syria take place under the remit of the United Nations Security Council.
Since then, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal and more recently the Kuwaiti government, have dropped demands for U.N. approval of any military strike from their public statements.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar have helped to arm and fund rebels fighting Mr. Assad’s regime behind the scenes, U.S. and Gulf officials say. Publicly and privately, they long have pushed the U. S. and international community for tougher action. Saudi Arabia shares some tribal ties with Syria and wants to contain Mr. Assad and his allies Iran and Hezbollah. Qatar has been more active than other Gulf states in supporting Arab Spring revolutions.
Several Saudi and Gulf security experts said they believed Saudi Arabia would be lobbying the U.S. for a broad and sustained air campaign that would weaken the Assad regime, rather than simply target Syria’s alleged chemical-weapon capability.
Saudis’ fear is a repeat of limited U.S. offensives on Iraq in 1993 and 1998, which let Saddam Hussein survive to redouble repression against his own people, said Mustafa Alani, a Saudi security analyst at the Gulf Research Center.
If the international strikes on Syria are going to be “limited in time, limited in scope, we think that It is better not to do it,” Mr. Alani said Saturday.
Mr. Assad and his regime leaders “will be able to take this sort of attack, survive, and they’re going to claim victory,” Mr. Alani warned.
A limited attack would be “very risky,” said Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran journalist and political commentator in the kingdom. Mr. Khashoggi outlined a possible scenario of prolonged Western airstrikes that would let rebels on the ground possibly gain control of Damascus and other sites.
“It’s a zero-sum game” for any international military action in Syria, Mr. Khashoggi said. “Win it, or lose it all.”
But Fahad Nazer, a Saudi political analyst and commentator based in Washington, D.C., said he believed Saudi Arabia—anxious as it was to contain not just Mr. Assad’s regime but its allies, Iran and Hezbollah—had refrained from public comment on U.S.-led military action because it, too, was unsure of the best step and worried about the aftermath.
In Doha, Qatar, Michael Stephens, a regional security researcher and analyst at the regional security and political think tank Royal United Services Institute, said he doubted Saudi Arabia would succeed if it is pushing the U. S. for a much bigger operation than the U.S. intends.
“Saudi Arabia pushing for increased action is unlikely to be viewed favorably by Western governments, which feel that type of intervention” is problematic, Mr. Stephens said. If the Saudis “wish to play an assertive role, they should play it themselves.”
— Adam Entous in Washington, D.C. and Matt Bradley in Cairo contributed to this article.

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