SYRIA: The Seinfeld summit

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The Egyptians are sending a low-ranking official. The Saudis, too, are sending a nobody, while the Lebanese are actually sending nobody.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki of Iraq may have to struggle to wrest himself from his troubles, while the archipelago nation of Comoros, undergoing a coup d’etat, is probably in no position to send anyone to the Arab League Summit, where Arab heads of state or their delegates are scheduled to meet this weekend to talk about...well, that’s a good question.

Cynics will cackle that the Arab League summits rarely accomplish anything. Previous summits have focused on the situation in Iraq or the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

But so far about only thing this year’s summit in Damascus has been mostly about is who is attending and who is blowing it off.

(Let’s not forget the biggest issue: who’s actually going to pick up the tab.)

Today, as foreign ministers of the Arab states met, the hundreds of journallists who’ve descended upon Damascus from around the world were left to interview each other at the international press center.

I have already fielded two requests for interviews. While waiting for news to break, I called up a source in Damascus for an interview.

With my cellphone cradled between my chin and shoulder, I began taking notes. Suddenly three photojournalists descended on me and began clicking away.

Apparently, I was the only journalist at the press center actually working.

— Borzou Daragahi in Damascus