Arab League summits have a poor track record of success, usually underlining rifts rather than accord. Thus, under normal circumstances, the convening of the Arab summit in Amman on March 29 would be a less-than-ordinary event. These, however, are not even normal times for the region. The annual meeting of the heads of the 22 member states had originally been scheduled for Yemen, but that has been precluded by the bloody civil war raging there with no end in sight. King Abdullah II offered in October to change the venue to his capital.

The last time Amman hosted an Arab summit was in June 2001, a few months before the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks on the United States and the ensuing war in Afghanistan. For further perspective, it was nearly two years before the invasion of Iraq and nearly a decade before the eruption of the Arab Spring. In those days, summit resolutions were predictable: condemnation of Israel and its occupation of Palestinian lands and meek criticism of Washington’s use of its veto power in the Security Council against a draft resolution to allow UN monitors to operate in the occupied territories.

For Jordan, a moderate pro-Western kingdom with a unique relationship with Israel and the Palestinians, managing Arab summits has always been challenging. For decades, Jordan supported Arab consensus and unity — something that has more recently been lacking at many crucial junctures. In November 1987, the late King Hussein headed an extraordinary summit in Amman that ended the Arab boycott of Egypt implemented after Cairo signed a unilateral peace treaty with Israel in 1979, supported Iraq in its war with Iran and brought about Arab reconciliation. It was a major achievement for the host country.

Jordan has consistently called for reforming the 70-year-old Arab League, of which it is a founding member. It has avoided being sucked into proxy confrontations and inter-Arab rivalries as it was during the first Gulf crisis and war (1990-91), when it paid the hefty price of being penalized by the Gulf states for ostensibly siding with Saddam Hussein following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.