IRAQ: With War, Age of Fence-sitting Over in South-east Asia

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Apr 10 2003 (IPS) - As Washington asserts its military supremacy on the battlefields of Iraq, the space for South-east Asian governments to take tough, anti-U.S. stances may be nearing the end.

This is more so in the wake of the U.S. government still prosecuting its ”war against terrorism” across the world, even as this region was already very much on Washington’s radar after Sep. 11. In fact, South-east Asia has been deemed the second front in this ”war”.

The countries most affected by the shrinking of political space will be Indonesia and Malaysia, who have majority Muslim populations. In the days leading up to the U.S. invasion on Iraq in March, both Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur revealed a tough anti-U.S. line in their rhetoric.

Thailand, on the other hand, opted for that diplomatic art of fence-sitting, by not giving open support to the U.S.-led military strike on Iraq but tacitly marching to Washington’s tune on some fronts, such as pressuring Iraqi diplomats to leave the country.

”The space has narrowed for strong independent foreign policy positions,” and it will be politically costly to oppose U.S. positions on the ground now, says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at the Bangkok-based Chulalongkorn University.

Likewise, ”Thailand’s pragmatic position of staying in the middle will make it easier to adjust after the Iraq war,” he adds.

Washington’s push into South-east Asia in its ”war against terrorism” will place further limits on any attempt at independent foreign policy making, agrees Malaysian political scientist Johan Saravanamuttu. ”It would definitely become worse.”

Only two countries the Philippines and Singapore – of the 10 who make up the Association of South-east Asian nations (ASEAN), the region’s main diplomatic grouping, will have little to tinker with their foreign policies in the wake of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s humiliating military defeat.

On Wednesday, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo reflected how close Manila was to Washington when she welcomed the U.S. military victory in Iraq.

”We must remember that we have also benefited in a significant way from the victory. We are now safer from weapons of mass destruction. We are more secure from the tentacles of worldwide terrorism abetted by rogue regimes.”

Arroyo, who made those comments at an event to commemorate the deaths of soldiers during the Second World War, lent her country’s support to the U.S.-led ”coalition of the willing” to drive Saddam from power. The Philippines, however, did not give military help.

More so, as a further sign of warm ties with Washington, Manila has announced that U.S. troops will be back this year to help Filipino troops confront the Abu Sayyaf band of Muslim rebels, which many consider a mere group of bandits, in the southern island of Mindanao.

Singapore has been as consistent if not a stronger ally of the United States, a fact underscored by the open arms with which the tightly-controlled city-state welcomes visiting U.S. forces.

In Indonesia, on the other hand, the toppling of the Saddam regime has been greeted by calls for a greater role for the United Nations to play in rebuilding Iraq.

”We want to see the UN play its part in the establishment of the post-war government in Iraq,” Hassan Wirayudha, Indonesia’s minister of foreign affairs, was quoted as having told the national news agency Antara on Tuesday.

The Malaysian government has maintained the same stance for a greater U.N. involvement in Iraq. ”The Malaysian foreign affairs minister and the Indonesian foreign affairs minister are unanimous on this,” Khalil Yaakoob, Malaysia’s information minister, said Tuesday following the launch in Kuala Lumpur of the Iraqi People’s Humanitarian Fund.

”You are going to see more of this pro-U.N. rhetoric in the coming days from Malaysia and Indonesia as a sign of softening stance from the anti-U.S. positions held before,” adds Thitinan.

According to Johan, even the Malaysian government will not be in a position to accept the consequences of standing up to the United States. ”Malaysia is very dependent on the U.S. market.”

”Even a country like Malaysia has basically accepted the premise that terrorism is a serious problem in this part of the world, and has basically gone along with the U.S. on this matter,” he adds.

Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world – with 170.3 million of its 212 million people belonging to Islam while 10.8 million people out of Malaysia’s 22.2 million are Muslims.

Other ASEAN countries like Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Cambodia and Burma all have Muslim minorities.

Months after the Sep. 11 acts of terror in the United States, Washington revealed that the al-Qaeda network, which it blames for masterminding the suicide attacks, had links to Muslim extremists in the region. The bombs detonated in the Indonesian island of Bali in October last year added weight to this charge.

Officials in South-east Asia and in Washington have named Jemaah Islamiyah as being at the vanguard of the region’s Muslim extremist networks. This group, which officials say plans to build a pan-Islamic region linking Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the southern Philippines and Brunei, has also been accused of having ties with al-Qaeda.

”Indonesia and Malaysia will have to walk a very tightrope because of this, since now, after Iraq, Washington can turn its attention to this issue in the region and go after the extremists,” says a South Asian diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.

”What we are going to see are choices thrust upon these governments,” he adds. ”The U.S. will present these countries with a fait accompli.”