The implications of the trilateral summit

Does two or three Arab leaders meeting mean that their meeting is directed against one or two other countries?

This is a poor understanding of politics, only considering it as a means of conspiracy, plotting, and creating axes.

I was surprised on Sunday that some regional media outlets only viewed the Egyptian-Jordanian-Iraqi Tripartite Summit as being directed against one country or another.

It was also surprising that some international media outlets, which are supposedly professional or at least classify themselves as such, also tried to reach the summit as a new axis in the region directed against an old axis.

We can perhaps excuse some for this type of thinking because they were surprised by the summit, which no one knew about until it was announced during a meeting between President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi on Saturday that there would be a trilateral summit to be held with Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

As for the implications of this summit, we discovered that Abdul-Mahdi’s visit to Egypt is his first since he took office months ago. He had vowed to his citizens that he would not leave Iraq until the formation of the government, which has been stalled for months due to bitter differences between the components of the Iraqi political scene. We knew that he declined the invitation to visit Cairo on many occasions due to the crisis of the government not being completed.

Some expected that Abdul-Mahdi’s first foreign visit would be to Iran or America, but he chose Cairo, which sends an essential message.

Should we excuse those who believe in conspiracy theory in this case because they remembered that Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Yemen were members of the Arab Cooperation Council that collapsed because of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990? We assume that this time is not the same, as the relationship between Egypt and Jordan is solid and friendly with the majority of the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia. Moreover, relations between Iraq and Saudi Arabia have been improving for months, and it is rational to believe that all states have the right not to put all of their eggs in one basket and to have as good as possible relations with everyone. It is irrational for a country to sever ties with another country or have cold relations with another country just to please another.

Apart from the twisted interpretations and analyses, the meeting between the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and Iraq is good news that gives hope to the long Arab night, which is full of civil, sectarian, and terrorist disputes, wars, and conflicts, both within a single state and with neighbouring countries.

One meaning of the meeting between the three leaders is that the Arab system is not dead yet, as many have claimed, and that it still has some life in it.

The summit also means that the national state, with all its problems and failures, is still able to live, and it has thwarted the idea of a religious state, whether under the Shia or Sunni sectarian banners.

Read: Questions from the Jordan, Egypt, Iraq meeting

Another meaning of the summit is that the terrorism that has plagued the Arab regime since 2011 has sustained major painful blows. Although it has not yet been knocked out and defeated, and its remnants are still present, surprising us with attacks here and there, its black flags have disappeared from all of the pockets and areas it occupied and flew its flag from since the summer of 2014.

The timing of the tripartite summit is significant, as it was a few days before the annual Arab summit in Tunis later this month. The timing was also significant because it was a day after announcing victory over Daesh and defeating it in its last stronghold in the village of Al-Baghuz, east of the Euphrates.

But does this mean that everything is just dandy?

The answer is no, because the fundamental problems remain, especially with regards to comprehensive development, widespread political participation, and the failure to communicate between governments and the majority of society, especially young people.

The summit discussed many points including economic cooperation, reconstruction, strategic coordination and many other matters we hope to see applied on the ground, especially security coordination in the pursuit of terrorist elements.

We hope that the Arabs will be able to restore Syria to joint Arab action so that they can distance it from the poisoned foreign embrace. We also hope they manage to resist the various pressures from the US, Israel, Russia and Iran.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.