By GWYNNE DYER ARABNEWS

For most of its 66-year history, the Arab League was a powerless organization, dominated by regimes that made sure it never criticized their lies and crimes. But suddenly, this year, it woke up and changed sides.

Last March the Arab League suspended Libya’s membership because of dictator Muammar Qaddafi’s brutal attempts to suppress the revolution, and voted to back a no-fly zone in Libya. That led directly to the UN resolution authorizing the use of force to protect civilians from Qaddafi’s army, and ultimately to the tyrant’s overthrow and death.

Last Saturday the Arab League acted again, suspending Syria’s membership. It did so because President Bashar Assad has not carried out the commitments he gave the League about ending the violence against Syrian civilians (an estimated 3,500 killed so far), pulling the army off the streets of Syrian cities, releasing the thousands of recently imprisoned protesters, and opening a dialogue with the opposition within two weeks.

On Sunday the League’s Secretary-General Nabil Al-Arabi called for “international protection” for Syrian civilians as the organization lacked the means to act alone. “There is nothing wrong with going to the UN Security Council because it is the only organization able to impose” such measures, he added. And he said that during a visit to Tripoli, the newly liberated capital of Libya.

Everybody understood the significance of his saying it there. The League explicitly rejects foreign military intervention in Syria, and NATO would never take on Assad’s regime anyway. But Al-Arabi was implicitly saying that what is happening in Syria now is comparable to what was happening in Libya six months ago, and that all measures short of war are justified to stop the slaughter in Syria and remove the dictator’s regime. Then on Monday, King Abdallah of Jordan finally said aloud what almost every other Arab leader has been thinking: “If Bashar (Assad) has the interest of his country (at heart) he would step down.”

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NOTE BY THE EDITOR:

What does the Holy Quran say, when Muslims fight Muslims? Read for instance:

49.10. The believers are but brothers, so make peace between your brothers; and keep from disobedience to God in reverence for Him and piety (particularly in your duties toward one another as brothers), so that you may be shown mercy (granted a good, virtuous life in the world as individuals and as a community, and eternal happiness in the Hereafter).
إِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ إِخْوَةٌ فَأَصْلِحُوا بَيْنَ أَخَوَيْكُمْ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُرْحَمُونَ