Syria ? Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi poured contempt on fellow Arab leaders at a summit Saturday, and warned that they might be overthrown like former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Gadhafi’s rambling, off-the-cuff speech to the opening of the Arab summit both bewildered and brought reluctant smiles to the faces of the other leaders.

The maverick Libyan’s litany of insults at Arabs and his undiplomatic railing at the disarray of Arab regimes have become almost a tradition at the annual gathering.

Dressed in lush purple and pink robes with a traditional Libyan cloak and cap, Gadhafi blasted Arab countries for doing nothing while the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and overthrew Saddam.

“How can we accept that a foreign power comes to topple an Arab leader while we stand watching?” he said. He said Saddam had once been an ally of Washington, “but they sold him out.”

“Your turn is next,” Gadhafi told the leaders, some of whom looked stunned while others broke into laughter at his frankness. “Destruction will be yours.”