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At last, after months of diplomatic wrangling which in more ways than one had the distinctive flavour of a Whitehall farce, the Arab League delegation have finally arrived in London. Britain had always wanted King Hussein to lead the delegation and the red carpet treatment accorded to the Jordanian monarch contrasted sharply with the way Downing Street had earlier dealt with King Hassan.

THE SEVENTH NON-ALIGNED CONFERENCE in New Delhi, attended by all the Middle East states except Israel, has come to its inconclusive end. The gathering of a hundred nations - some two thirds of the total membership of the United Nations - spent almost as much time in trying to resolve procedural wrangles as it devoted to the production of answers to the issues of which the Movement is seized.

The OPEC oil crisis, although anchored firmly in the financial and economic bedrock of oil prices and production levels, has now unceremoniously shouldered its way into the political agenda.

THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION has said it is 'optimistic' about the prospects for resuming expanded Middle East peace negotiations, following the Palestine National Council (PNC) meeting in Algiers.

The kingdom has kept a low political profile during the past few weeks and has refrained from substantial comment on various and far from insignificant developments in the Middle East. For the time being, Saudi Arabia appears to be content to operate through the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) which, conveniently, met at foreign minister level last weekend.

IRAN'S ANTICIPATED OFFENSIVE in the Gulf war began earlier this month; not in the region near Basra as some military observers expected, but in the Misan province with the town of Al Amarah as the apparent objective, some 200 miles south-east of the capital.

February 14th may well be the watershed date in current Arab political affairs; it is then that the Palestine National Council is due to meet in Algiers. The council should, among other things, reach a decision as to whether the Palestinian movement will concert with Jordan in possible negotiations centering around the issue of the West Bank.

Arab hopes of even the beginnings of a general Middle East peace settlement can only be fulfilled if and when an acceptable solution to the situation in Lebanon is brought about. The Fez peace plan, the Reagan initiative, the various Arab diplomatic and political efforts, all hinge on events and developments in the Lebanon. In this special issue, Newsletters gives an appraisal of the key issues, with on-the-spot reports from the Lebanon and from exclusive interviews with senior Lebanese officials.

King Fahd has stressed, with every good reason, the importance of maintaining the momentum of the Arab peace efforts. King Hussein of Jordan said recently the Arabs have only till March to make up their minds as to the direction they wish to take.

THE COMPARATIVE QUIET ON THE IRAQ-IRAN BATTLEFRONT is in direct contrast to the high level of diplomatic activity being generated from Baghdad. Spurred on by Iran's continued refusal to come to a negotiated peace except on Iran's unacceptable terms and looking to a not-so-distant spring when Iran might resume its military offensive, Iraq is working hard to bolster its political defences and obtain increased external support.

Britain's power and prestige has waned drastically over the past quarter of a century or so but it has retained, particularly in the Middle East, something of a reputation for skilled exercise of its diplomatic and political affairs. In Arab eyes that reputation must now be dented, if not entirely demolished, by the sorry British performance over the issue of the visit of the Arab League delegation to London.

FOR THE ARAB STATES OF THE GULF, 1982 began with a sense of unease and uncertainty. The reverberations of the uncovering of a subversive plot in Bahrain, allegedly of Iranian inspiration, caused all the countries of the region to look apprehensively at their individual and collective internal security; a series of bilateral security agreements were quickly concluded between Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Co-operation Council states - with the exception of Kuwait.

A draft constitution for the united Yemen is due to be discussed next month at a meeting of the Yemen Council, formed to implement the unification of the two Yemens. The snails-pace negotiations - they have been in intermittent progress for three years - may now be somewhat accelerated, following the South Yemen-Oman reconciliation agreement. Since the signing of the agreement with Oman, the South Yemen has been fairly active in mending its fences with other states in the peninsula, particularly Saudi Arabia.

THERE NEVER WAS ANY CO-ORDINATION in the various political moves, initiated in the wake of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, to structure a lasting Middle East peace. There is an American 'initiative' from President Reagan, an Arab peace plan agreed at the Fez summit, the late Mr. Brezhnev's scheme and a joint Egyptian-French design; all propounded as the solution for an overall Middle East peace settlement. Although these proposals express an ultimate common aim, they differ substantially as to the means by which it is to be reached and, even, as to its final political shape.

The miserable catalogue of errors of commission and omission which has led to the cancellation of the visit of the Arab seven-man committee to London is a classic case of a wrong outcome arrived at for all the wrong reasons.