Two years later, as members of the Arab League sat down in Iraq’s capital on Thursday for another summit meeting, they composed a tableau of how much — and how little — had changed after a year of popular uprisings and bloody revolts began chipping away at the old order of the region.  Gone were the authoritarian leaders of Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. Syria, suspended from the group as it wages a bloody campaign against antigovernment forces and protesters, was represented by an empty chair. And Colonel Qaddafi was dead, shot by victorious rebels last October in the very city where the Arab League staged its 2010 meeting.  “This summit comes at a momentous time for Iraq and the Arab world,” the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said in a speech to the leaders and diplomats. “The winds of change will not cease to blow.”  But the air felt still inside Baghdad’s newly renovated palace, where Saddam Hussein once held court.  Arab leaders and diplomats offered platitudes about reform and democracy while glossing over the treatment of religious and ethnic minorities, political opponents and dissidents in their own countries. No one discussed the violence in the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain, where the Sunni monarchy with its allies in Saudi Arabia violently suppressed a largely peaceful Shiite uprising. Fewer than half of the league’s heads of state showed up, and only one from a gulf nation, the Kuwaiti emir.  And in another constant with the past, the Arab League failed to address the issue of the day substantively. In this case, the membership was unable to offer any concrete plan for easing the deepening humanitarian crisis in Syria, a struggle whose increasingly sectarian dimensions were on display at the gathering.  “The summit is now almost inconsequential,” Mohamad Bazzi, an adjunct fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a discussion published on the council’s Web site. “The events on the ground have accelerated to the point that Arab leaders are playing catch-up, and Syria is the perfect example.”  In its most significant action of the three-day meeting, the group adopted a resolution on Thursday urging Syria’s government to adhere to a six-point cease-fire proposal brokered by the United Nations. The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has agreed to the cease-fire, but continuing violence has deepened fears that he will not abide by the proposal.  Speech after speech on Thursday paid homage to the people of Syria, where the United Nations estimates that 9,000 civilians have been killed. The leaders condemned Mr. Assad’s government as committing humanitarian crimes against its own people.  But analysts said the Arab League had ceded any leadership to the United Nations and dialed back its own ambitions in the wake of a failed mission sending observers to Syria. The Foreign Ministry in Damascus on Thursday repeated its rejection of any decisions at the meeting related to Syria.  Although Saudi Arabia and Qatar — which sent only low-level delegations to the summit meeting — have called for more aggressive action against Mr. Assad, the leaders gathered in Baghdad refused to consider any more muscular options. They declined to call for Mr. Assad to go, and said they had not even considered whether to endorse arming opposition forces. That was partly a reflection of internal divisions among Arab leaders, some of whom continue to resist pressuring Mr. Assad to step down.  “We have already tried to find an Arab solution to this issue, but we didn’t succeed,” Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said at a news conference on Wednesday night. “We have no new initiative to bring except for the issues we’ve already discussed.”  Instead of substance, the meeting offered symbolism. And for the Shiite-led Iraqi government, which spent two years and $500 million preparing a war-scarred capital for the meeting, symbolism may have been enough.  Iraqi officials saw the three-day event as their chance to shrug off Iraq’s status as a diplomatic pariah and re-enter the Arab world as an independent nation that can hold its ground against powerful neighbors like Shiite Iran, Sunni Saudi Arabia and an economically and politically ascendant Turkey.  Iraqi diplomats worked to smooth over relations with Sunni Arab neighbors before the gathering, agreeing to pay off decades-old debts. For the arriving guests, the government provided lavish meals, spotless new accommodations and sleek black Mercedes sedans.  At least 10 Arab leaders did attend the summit meeting, including those of Lebanon, Sudan, Tunisia and Kuwait, which was invaded by Saddam Hussein in 1990.  In a glimpse of at least partial reconciliation, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and the Kuwaiti emir exchanged kisses on the tarmac at Baghdad’s airport and marched down a red carpet together.  “I hope this will remind the Arabs that Iraq is a very important Arab country, and must get back to where it should be — in an Arab environment rather than under the Iranian influence,” said Mohammad Abdullah al-Zulfa, a historian and a former member of the Saudi Shura Council.  But there were slights. Explaining the decision not to attend, Qatar’s prime minister, Sheik Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, said in an interview with Al Jazeera that his nation was “sending a message” signaling discontent with the growing sectarianism in Iraqi politics and the deep disenfranchisement among Iraq’s Sunni minority.  But Iraqi officials were relieved that their worst fears of disruptive violence did not come to pass. A rocket exploded outside the Iranian Embassy not far from the International Zone on Thursday afternoon, but officials said no one was hurt.  Otherwise, the normally frenetic capital was as quiet as a vacation town in the off season. Nearly every bridge over the Tigris River was closed to traffic. Roads were blocked by brambles of concertina wire, entire neighborhoods sealed off. Residents in several neighborhoods in western Baghdad said they had no cellphone service, suggesting that the government had cut the mobile networks to try to prevent terrorist attacks.  As the visiting dignitaries boarded their private planes on Thursday and began streaming home, there was no word on when the extreme security measures would be lifted.
Arab leaders in Baghdad offered platitudes about democracy and reform, but did not address the unrest that has swept through their countries.