This upcoming Arab summit is quite significant. Usually, these events are quite formal and rarely reach meaningful conclusions but this summit will officially crown House of Saud as the leader of the club of Arab regimes. The summit will basically be an occasion of official acclamation: instead of tribes offering loyalty and fealty, the US will use this summit to designate Saudi Arabia as the overall leader of Arab regimes. Even Syria and Sudan will go along. Bashshar just gave a pathetic interview to a Saudi newspaper in which he all but apologized to "his uncle" King `Abdullah. He paid more tributes to King `Abdullah than what you read in the Saudi press normally. Nobody is left; the Saudi era--or the Shakbuti ear as the Syrian thinker Yasin Al-Hafidh used to call it--assumes a new role. This is Saudi Era Part II. In the Saudi Era Part I, the House of Saud was still intimidated by several Arab regimes, and it kept its role in support of Sadat's pro-Israeli policies behind the scenes. Now, the Saudi government leads the camp of normalization, and then the so-called Saudi "peace initiative"--better be called the Thomas Friedman initiative--will quickly be reduced to what Israel wants from it: not full peace and prostration in return for 24% of Palestine and Golan and Sinai without sovereignty, but full peace and prostration in return for nothing. Instead of land-for-peace, it is peace-for-nothing, or nothing-for-peace. Syria will continue to negotiate in secret with the Israelis, and will continue to try to please the US, but will also continue to maintain its rhetorical bluster--the Ba`th has only contributed bombast and bluster for Palestine. This summit will deliver the US demands and conditions to the assembled camp of unelected bunch; a group of people who will not feel safe walking in the streets of their own capitals. A group of leaders who will have one model to emulate: they will all be expected to become like Karzai and Sanyurah: people with no room for maneuver or initiative: people who only take orders and can't even negotiate their terms of surrender. Some in the 1960s used to suggest that Um Kulthum was an Israeli conspiracy because she tranquilized and distracted the masses. Now, with the Satellite stations (funded by House of Saud and their affiliates) all over the region, there are hundreds of distractions and tranquilizers for the Arab public. When you are hopeless, it is easy to be distracted. Once in a while, the regimes will allow the masses to let off steam: like in the case of Danish cartoons. But the Arab regimes are at the hight of their arrogance and their false sense of security: from the King of Jordan to Walid Jumblat, they all feel warm having US troops close by in Iraq. But that will alas not last. Jumblat admitted that in his interview with an American reporter. These are people who want US troops in Iraq forever, just like the puppets of the US in Iraq. But US troops will leave; a new chapter of US foreign policy will leave them vulnerable. I am not saying they will necessarily be overthrown. Don't get me wrong: I am not betting on Arab masses. Like `Arafat, I lost my hope for the ability of the Arab masses to bring about desirable change back in 1982. We still remember unfondly that the Arab masses were busy with the World Cup when Beirut was under siege by Israeli occupation troops. But don't get me wrong: the Arab masses will be outraged if Danish cartoonists offend their religious sensibilities again.