For an octogenarian, King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia has had a busy summer vacation.  In the last week he held summit meetings with Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, traveled to Beirut with Assad to meet the Lebanese leadership and closed off his flurry of Arab diplomacy with a stop in Jordan to palaver with King Abdallah II. The Saudi monarch's itinerary, particularly his cooperation with Assad, led some commentators in the Saudi-owned pan-Arab media to recall the 1970s, when the Riyad-Cairo-Damascus triangle dominated Arab politics. The unstated hope behind the comparison is that Syria might distance itself from Iran and join a solid Arab front that not only would contain Tehran's influence in the region but also pressure the U.S. and Israel for real progress on the peace process. The current circumstances, however, are substantially different from those of the 1970s. Abdallah might want to recreate the Riyad-Cairo-Damascus triangle that dominated Arab politics in the 1970s, but the situation is far different now.  The views and strategies of the three capitals do not line up as they did 40 years ago, and it is unlikely that such a great realignment is in the cards. 

Abdullah likely wanted to use his trip to Beirut to repair his relationship with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in order to make sure that the anticipated indictment of Hizballah operatives in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri does not blow up Lebanese politics. A return to violence in Lebanon would, in Abdallah's view, redound to the benefit of Iran, the containment of which is currently his central goal. He also wanted to strengthen Arab support for Iyad Allawi's campaign to form the next government in Iraq.  Jordan and Egypt have long joined Saudi Arabia in supporting Allawi; more recently Syria seems to have joined the Arab front in favor of Allawi replacing current Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

His Beirut summit might have helped to settle down jittery Lebanese nerves, but those who see this meeting as the beginning of a new "Arab alignment of moderation" will be disappointed. The Saudi-Egyptian-Syrian alignment of the earlier era was built on an understanding among the three governments to set aside ideological squabbles, after the intense inter-Arab conflicts of the Nasser period, and focus on state-to-state cooperation.  They abandoned efforts to encourage opposition movements in each others countries. They marginalized the most important non-state actor in the region, the PLO, to the extent that they did not even inform Yasir Arafat about their war plans in 1973.  While Syria was certainly involved in the Lebanese civil war in the second half of the 1970s, it acted there with the tacit support of Egypt (at the outset) and Saudi Arabia, not in competition with them. Cooperation to strengthen their international positions, vis-a-vis the U.S., the USSR and Israel, was more important than competing for Arab leadership by mucking around in the domestic politics of other Arab states.

Now, despite the Abdallah-Assad joint visit to Lebanon, the two leaders are still backing different and competing horses in Lebanese politics - Syria with Hizballah and Saudi Arabia with Saad al-Hariri and what is left of the March 14 movement. The ongoing domestic crises in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and Yemen are the central playing fields of the Saudi-Iranian contest for influence in the region. Syria seems to be leaning toward the Saudis on Iraq right now, but there is hardly Arab consensus on how these issues should be solved. While Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan would be happy today to return to the state-centered paradigm of the 1970s, Syria's regional influence depends on its relations with non-state actors like Hizballah and Hamas, which continue to have its headquarters in Damascus.  With Iraqi politics still a mess, Lebanon as factionalized as ever, the Palestinians split between Hamas and Fatah and Yemen pulled in numerous directions, all the Arab states find themselves playing in the domestic politics of their neighbors and frequently backing opposing parties.

The Arab triangle of the 1970s came together in a common strategy toward Israel. They formed the war alliance of 1973, with Saudi Arabia backing the Egyptian-Syrian war effort with the oil embargo of 1973-74. They agreed that after the war they would pursue a diplomatic strategy of negotiation, through the United States, with Israel. The triangle broke down when the Egyptian and Syrian strategies toward the peace process diverged, with Anwar Sadat going the route of direct negotiations with Israel and Hafiz al-Assad fiercely opposing Sadat. Now, the Arab states do not share a common approach to the peace process. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, having put the Arab League on record as supporting a land for peace deal with Israel, now count on the United States to push the Israelis.  Syria, while not averse to negotiations, believes direct pressure from Hizballah and Hamas are the way to bring the Israelis to the table. 

Unlike their counterparts of 40 years ago, the Arab leaders today also disagree about how to deal with the major strategic challenge in the region. Then, they adopted a common strategy toward Israel. Now, they diverge markedly on how to deal with Iran. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan want to see Iranian influence in the Arab world contained, and rolled back if possible.  Syria still sees its strategic alliance with Iran as a centerpiece of its regional policy.

The recent hopes for a revival of the Arab solidarity of the 1970s are therefore destined to be dashed on all scores. King Abdallah is playing the long game with Syria, hoping over time to move it away from its alliance with Iran. (After failing in his earlier policy, in conjunction with the Bush Administration, of isolating and pressuring Assad.)  But until there is a fundamental reassessment in Damascus about its regional role, Arab cooperation is bound to be a limited, issue-specific, and a short-term phenomenon. That means that no one should expect any significant all-Arab initiatives on the Arab-Israeli peace process any time soon. It also means that Iran will not face a unified Arab front in opposition to the expansion of its regional influence or to its nuclear ambitions. 

F. Gregory Gause, III is a professor of political science at the University of Vermont and the author of "The International Politics of the Persian Gulf" (Cambridge University Press, 2010).