Saudi Arabia has pulled its ambassador out of Damascus only weeks ahead of a planned Arab summit there to express its anger at Syria over a political crisis in Lebanon, in what some analysts say is the playing out of a regional power struggle between pro- and anti-U.S. Arab players.After reportedly threatening to boycott the March summit, Arab diplomats said, Saudi Arabia transferred its ambassador in Damascus, Ahmad Ali Qahtani, to Doha to lower the kingdom's representation in Syria while simultaneously upgrading its presence in Qatar.
Saudi Arabia has not had an ambassador in Qatar since Riyadh withdrew him in 2002 after the Qatar-based al-Jazeera news channel aired a debate in which a guest sharply criticized the Saudi royal family. The two wealthy Gulf Arab countries have been lashing out at each other through their media for the past two years. By moving the envoy from Damascus to Doha the Saudis seek to repair one relationship at the expense of another, one Arab diplomat told the Middle East Times, suggesting that the influential monarchy will flex its full political and economic muscle against Syria to "facilitate presidential elections" in Lebanon.
Other Arab diplomats said this week that Saudi King Abdullah will boycott the March 29-30 summit while Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will only attend if Syria exerts enough pressure on its Lebanese allies in the opposition to abandon their demands to free the way for the election of a president.
Saudi Arabia's U.S.-backed Arab allies have indicated that they, too, will boycott the summit, or dispatch low-level delegations if Lebanon doesn't have a president by then. Saudi-owned newspapers have also reported on discussions earlier this week between Arab heavyweight leaders Mubarak and the Saudi monarch, over the possibility of seeking to move the summit from Damascus to Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh. Some commentators urged them to call off the meeting altogether. "Darkness shrouds the Arab summit," Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said, in remarks to the Saudi-financed al-Hayat daily on Thursday. "And for that reason, I insist on salvaging the Lebanon crisis."