Siniora: President should attend Arab Summit

Yesterday, prime minister Siniora stated that Lebanon should be represented by the president, not the prime minister. Quite obviously, this is a call for pressure on Syria which wants their Damascus Summit to be a success, which is going to be difficult enough as it is.

Siniora's insistance on protocol is rather dubious given that during at least two Arab Summits namely the one in Saudi Arabia and in Sudan, it was Siniora who represented Lebanon as a prime minister, in a separate mission, completing president Lahoud's.

Anyway...

The Naharnet article quoted Siniora as saying that "Lebanon has not received an invitation. The invitation should be addressed to the president".

It makes you wonder, from a purely formal point of view, what exactly is going on: has the Arab League indeed failed to invite Lebanon or did it invite Lebanon but addressed the invitation to the president, giving Siniora an opportunity to claim Lebanon has not been invited?

If the latter case is true, it means Siniora is not executing all of his responsibilities, namely to be acting president. As acting president, he would be fully authorized to receive and accept the Arab League invitation. Assuming Siniora has refused to do so, it would be quite a selective choice as he has no quarrels carrying out his 'acting president' responsibilities when it comes to other tasks he takes care of as acting president.

If the first is true, that would raise the question why the Arab League hasn't invited Lebanon yet. Surely, the member countries can't all be taken side with March 14 and be using the invitation as political leverage on March 8?

So what is going on? Either Siniora is lying or the Arab League has truly become body that, for once, has taken a firm stance.