As Arab presidents, emirs, and kings lined up alongside the United Nations secretary general and the Pakistani, Malaysian, and Turkish heads of state in last month’s Arab League summit in Riyadh, one key player was missing at the highest level: Iran. Its nominal head of state, Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad, was not invited to the summit. Instead the relatively weak foreign minister, Manoucher Mottaki, attended on behalf of the Islamic Republic.
On the surface, this fits the caricature narrative that has emerged in… more
