The Arab League's latest sessions on Syria bring to mind the first Arab League summit I witnessed, in November 1973. Meeting in Algiers barely two months after a coup had overthrown the elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, league officials corralled the press corps in a football stadium, sparking comparisons with events in the Estadio Nacional in Santiago, where General Augusto Pinochet tortured and murdered Mr Allende's supporters.
Our torment took the form of lengthy and tedious speeches from the heads of state, who were feeling empowered by two events: Egypt and Syria has just held Israel to a draw in the Sinai and Golan Heights, and the Arab oil states had imposed an embargo on the countries that sustained Israel's occupation of the territories it occupied in 1967.
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