Rumors have been swirling that the Arab League is getting ready to readmit Syria to the bloc, suggesting that a deal of sorts may have been reached with Damascus to facilitate their reconciliation.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was the first Arab League leader to visit Damascus and meet with President Assad late last year, after which the UAE and then Bahrain decided to reopen their embassies in the country. These seemingly coordinated actions appeared to confirm the earlier reports that the Arab League was getting ready to reconcile with Syria, which received a lot more credibility after follow-up reports hit the media at the beginning of this year about how many of its members are in support of this initiative.
The readmission of Syria to the Arab League would be a welcome move that would tacitly recognize that the country's democratically elected and legitimate government won its eight-year-long war against tens of thousands of foreign-supported terrorist and “rebel” forces, but it naturally raises the question of what some of those same countries who at one time backed those anti-government fighters are after by making peace with Damascus and why the state would go along with this. It's unrealistic to imagine that war-torn Syria can give the wealthy Gulf Monarchies anything of tangible value whereas it's much more plausible that it's Syria itself which is seeking something from them and might have cut a deal to obtain it.
One of the…
