From the ‘Past' of Summits... to the Economy of ‘State Builders'

Asharq Al-Awsat

20-05-2025

Let us forget, for a moment, that the president of the United States is the most powerful political leader in the world, and that he can annihilate humanity at the press of a button or obliterate the global economy with an 'executive order.'
For a moment, let us put that to one side and focus, instead, on two undeniable truths that we must address as Arabs during these extraordinary times in our contemporary history.
First, we have the truth of Arab affairs as they currently are, not as we would like them to be. Second economic, technological, strategic, and ideological shifts are sweeping the globe at astonishing speed.
The Arab states met on Saturday at a summit hosted by Baghdad, a city that had once been the capital of the greatest empire in history. Sadly, it hosted the 34th Arab League summit under unfavorable circumstances that underlined the inertia of our Arab nation more than they showcased a capacity for overcoming existential challenges.
To begin with, state representation was modest. Several Arab capitals have reached the conviction that betting on joint Arab action is futile, with some even rejecting the very idea of a single shared Arab identity. Still, no one is willing to admit it explicitly and bear the consequences.
Indeed, the deep-seated distrust brewing 'beneath the ashes' has become apparent to anyone keenly following regional issues and impending decisions. Having practiced obfuscation, denial, disregard, and willful neglect, we have become adept at papering over these truths, undermining most initiatives and political approaches that have any real substance or impact.
The Arab failure to address chronic flashpoints and crises reflects this. Although some signs of a breakthrough have emerged, tentatively and timidly, in Syria and Lebanon, it is painfully clear that the Arab states have no shared strategy for alleviating the pain of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. No practical approach for curbing Iranian influence has been developed either, be it Iran's more recent foothold in Yemen or its longstanding hegemony in Iraq, where Tehran-backed militias still have the final say on the ground. And certainly, there are no signs of an imminent end to the chaos in Libya, the escalating crisis in Sudan, or the chronic conflict between Algeria and Morocco.
For all these reasons and others, Arab officials have concluded that there is no longer a need to burden the institution of the Arab League with tasks it can no longer undertake - that is, anything beyond the usual generous expressions of fraternity and solidarity and ritualized performative indignation.
As for the second truth - the astonishing pace of economic, technological, strategic, and ideological global change - it will affect us. In fact, it has already begun to shape our lives in the Arab world and beyond. I began this piece by stating that the US president is the most powerful 'political' leader in the world to set the stage for developments we must be prepared for and learn to live with.
In my humble opinion, there was someone far more important than the 'politician' Trump, despite the success of his Gulf tour.
They are the architects of America's future, its global influence, and its political establishment: the executives and investors of technology companies and the industries of the future, particularly artificial intelligence. Among them are Elon Musk, who has now become bigger than a 'kingmaker,' and executives from major corporations, such as NVIDIA, Google, OpenAI, BlackRock, Uber, Blackstone, and others that dominate the Fortune 500 list.
These are the people leading the charge of America's war against future challengers, chief among them China.
Whereas China synergizes the efforts of the public and private sectors in building its techno-economic arsenal, however, Trump's Washington seems to be armed solely with the power of the private sector, gradually eliminating every non-consumerist role for human beings.
To put it plainly: Washington seeks neither obstacles nor restraints nor regulatory standards on investment. It has no legal or organizational framework for investment and regulation, firmly opposing any regime or legislative framework that could slow the pace of liberalization and economic openness. This is a crucial dimension of its struggle for the future, particularly with China, that has major political implications for an era in which interest trumps ideology.
The very concept of the state itself is now in doubt. The logic of accountability has become a burden on efficiency. The principle of civil liberties has become just a matter of opinion. The idea of a democracy safeguarded by a constitutional political system has become a contentious issue. At best, it is now debatable and applied with discretion.
How could things be otherwise? Indeed, the budgets of the giant corporations waging this global battle far exceed those of sovereign states. This brings me back to an American saying I first heard during my freshman year at university: 'If ideology was the weapon of 20th-century wars, then technology is the weapon of 21st-century wars.'
It's no coincidence, then, that the phrase 'America's business is business' (though it was said in a different context) is associated with Republican President Calvin Coolidge (who served from 1923 to 1929), a staunch believer in minimizing the role of the state in the economy, see non-interference in market mechanisms at the criteria for assessing government efficiency.
In the world of the future, which is rushing toward us faster than we had ever been prepared for, we fear that our societies, unless our cultural awareness and patterns of thinking change, might not succeed in avoiding the pain and enormous costs that these transformations threaten.
We could pay a very high price for maturity.