IRAN: Conflict with Arabs over islands heats up

Arab leaders at last weekend's summit in Damascus voiced claims over three disputed Persian Gulf Islands that both Iran and the United Arab Emirates consider part of their property. Iran was predictably outraged by the claim.

Though it was a minor footnote to an Arab League Summit marred by nearly a dozen no-shows and a murky outcome, it remains a sore spot for Iranians, who took the matter up with the United Nations.

The decades-old islands dispute also became fodder for the main Friday prayer sermon in Tehran today.

"The final declaration of the Arab Summit showed they have been entrapped by the U.S.," prayer leader Ahmad Khatami told worshippers. "Three islands in the Persian Gulf forever belong to Iran and the Persian Gulf remains Persian for good, and nobody can deny it."

Khatami is a conservative not to be confused with the reformist former president Mohammad Khatami.

SYRIA: Arab League Summit's bitter aftertaste

The Arab League Summit ended over the weekend in the Syrian capital of Damascus with no breakthroughs, as expected, on the various political crises of the region.

The main news that came out of this annual meeting of Arab leaders was the absence of several heads of state. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, among other countries, sent low-ranking officials to the conference because, in their eyes, Damascus was blocking the selection of a president in Lebanon, which sent no one to the conference.

SYRIA: The Seinfeld summit

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

Photo: Arab League Secretary General Amr Mousa speaks to a journalist after the meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Damascus on March 27. Credit: LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty Images

LEBANON: Not taking the road to Damascus

Lebanon's political life is on hold these days. And all eyes are now focused on the annual summit of Arab leaders at the end of this week in Damascus. The meeting is expected to extensively discuss the Lebanese conundrum.

But hopes are already low that a miraculous solution will come out of these Arab talks. Late Tuesday night, the Lebanese government decided to boycott the Arab Summit.

SYRIA: Offering Lebanon an olive branch, or a booby trap?

Is Syria just playing games or is it really trying to repair its acrid relations with the Lebanese government?

That was question this week after Damascus dispatched an official for an express visit to Beirut. His mission: deliver an official invitation to Lebanon's government for this year's controversial Arab Summit, scheduled for Damascus at the end of March.

SYRIA: Avoiding an Arab League fiasco

Once again, Syria is proving to be the "black sheep" of the Arab world.

After years of waiting, it's finally Damascus' turn to shine as host of the annual Arab League Summit. But now come worries that Saudi Arabia, along with Egypt and Jordan, might ruin the party.

The so-called "moderate Arab states," backed by the U.S., want to punish Syria for trying to regain control over its smaller neighbor, Lebanon. For the past three months, Saudis have blamed Syrians for repeatedly blocking the election of a Lebanese president.

LEBANON: Oops! They didn't do it again

To the surprise of no one, Lebanese politicians this week again failed to vote for a president. That makes it three months that the country has been without a president because of a political deadlock.

This time, representatives from the two feuding blocs sat around a table to discuss the distribution of power in the next government. They smiled for the cameras before closing the door to the press.

Finally, after long hours, the sponsor of the meeting, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, announced the failure of talks.

"We want to save Lebanon, not to score points," he told reporters without hiding his irritation.

As Moussa left the country empty-handed, the speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri, set March 11 as the new date for lawmakers to choose the nation's new head of state.

But will the 15th attempt be the final one?

— Raed Rafei in Beirut

LEBANON: Putting off vote, yet again

So again, Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri postponed the sesssion to choose the country's next president. Lawmakers were supposed to convene today, but the session has been delayed until Feb. 11. That's the 13th postponement.

Although Lebanon's two feuding camps say they agree on army Gen. Michel Suleiman as the man for the top job, they continue to wrangle about the composition of the next government. In the background, Iran and Syria compete with the US and other Western powers for influence in this tiny country.

Lebanon has long been a proxy battleground. Today it struggles in vain to remain independent of the region's many conflicts.

LEBANON: Prez pick postponed again

To the surprise of no one, Lebanon's political mess continues on and on. Parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri on Friday afternoon delayed Saturday's session for choosing of a president until Jan. 21. It's the 12th time the session has been postponed.

A jumble of foreign diplomats have tried and utterly failed to resolve a crisis that has left the country without a president for nearly two months. The latest would-be hero: the head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa. He's held tens of meetings with feuding political parties, in Beirut and around.

EGYPT: An Iranian in Cairo

What was Ali Larijani, a representative of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, doing in Cairo? Was Iran's former nuclear negotiator just visiting the pyramids with his family, or was there more to his visit than that?

Many saw the visit as an attempt at healing the long-standing rift between Iran and major Arab powers. Although Larijani was ostensibly on a private trip with his family to Egypt, he seized the opportunity to hold talks with powerful Egyptian officials.