Asia fears Iraq war will fuel instability by Abdullah Al Madani aljazeerah.info

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Asia fears Iraq war will fuel instability by Abdullah Al Madani
Bahrain | | 06-04-2003

Asians are no exception to other people throughout the world who strongly oppose and condemn the current Anglo-American war against Iraq. The best evidence of this is the overwhelming protest and demonstration that swept Asian countries from Pakistan to Taiwan.

However, one cannot say that all demonstrators are motivated merely by anti-war sentiments or humanitarian feelings.

Many Asians found in these demonstrations a means of venting anger and fury at Washington for reasons other than the current war in Iraq. Muslim fundamentalist groups in Asia have been given the opportunity to voice their hostility towards the Americans because of what had happened to their comrades or allies in the recent war in Afghanistan or in the anti-terror campaign.

There were also the Marxist and leftist groups who seized the opportunity to deride those who had caused the downfall of their ideological powerhouse represented by the former Soviet Union. Other groups included anti-globalisation advocates who wished to seize the opportunity to vent their anger against the leader of globalisation.

This can be confirmed by the divergence between the methods of expression and the slogans in Asia's anti-war protests, which have ranged between peaceful demonstrations free of fiery banners and violent demonstrations characterised by burning of flags and effigies, calling for Jihad, and holding posters of Saddam Hussain, Osama bin Laden and Karl Marx side by side.

In fact, some of the demonstrations and public protests in Asian cities have been much of a surprise to the U.S. administration. Of course Washington expected massive opposition to its invasion of Iraq in the Asian Muslim countries, or those with a Muslim majority, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia, owing to religious influences.

It expected Muslims of these nations to describe a war on Iraq as an assault on all Muslims or as a crusade.

But what it did not expect was the occurrence of such a phenomenon in countries such as Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, (perhaps depending on the fact that these nations' survival greatly relies on the American security umbrella against potential threats from China and North Korea) or such as Thailand and Philippines (perhaps due to the fact that the interests of large sectors of these countries' population rely on the U.S. economy, not to mention the American security assistance designed to protect them against terrorist movements).

At any rate, it seems that Washington has not bothered much about Asian mass demonstrations, regardless of their locations or sources, viewing them as only an ineffective and temporary trend that would soon vanish.

According to a Western analyst, Washington seems convinced that no matter how loudly Asian protests against the U.S. are, the participants are among the first to happily welcome any chance of a life in New York or Los Angeles and the most enthusiastic seekers of a U.S. citizenship.

Apart from the above, Washington's indifference to-wards the feelings of the overwhelming masses and their vehement protests is based upon its total confidence in the Asian governments' stands.

These governments have generally proved that they act towards the current war in Iraq in a different manner from the prevailing public opinion, despite some differences from one country to another. Apart from the Malay-sian government of Maha-thir Mohammed who is known for years for his sharp criticism of the U.S., the remaining Asian regimes have either declared their support to Washington or condemned the war in soft language.

Meanwhile, they have attempted to minimise the domestic consequences of their stands by adopting secondary measures to give the impression that their foreign policy decisions are free from any outside influence. For example, the Japanese government of Junichiro Koizumi and the South Korean government of Roh-Moo Hyun have clearly voiced their backing of President Bush.

However, the former balanced its decision by resenting American pressure to expel Iraqi diplomats from Tokyo while the latter refused to send combat troops to the operation zone in the Gulf.

Of course, all these official policy stands have been dictated by the desire not to anger Washington for economic and security interests. Tokyo and Seoul have not been able to adopt other stands at a time when they are in dire need of American support in the face of North Korean threats.

Thus, one can understand the position of the new South Korean President, Roh-Moo Hyun, that totally contradicts his lifelong fierce criticism of the U.S.

The Philippines has opted to remain silent and responded positively to the U.S. request to expel Iraqi diplomats from its territories, because it does not wish to lose U.S. security or support in its war against the Abu Sayyaf group and other separatist movements.

Pakistan, whose cities witnessed some of the largest Asian anti-war protests, has opted to denounce the war but used soft language to avoid losing Washington's economic support and in order not to push the latter to adopt a stand that would benefit India, its arch rival.

In Indonesia, although the government of Megawati Sukarno-putri has rejected Washington's action against Iraq and considered it a breach of the spirit of international law, its criticism has been circumspect and not as strong as Malaysia's.

This is because of Indonesia's need for U.S. and international aid in order to end its economic difficulties. The same is also true of China which does not wish to sacrifice its huge economic gains from its relations with Washington.

China, in fact, tended not to engage itself deeply in the noisy Security Council debates that took place in March and did not commit itself to exercise the veto right as both France and the Russian Federation did. Following the outbreak of war, Beijing preferred to condemn the hostilities in a diplomatic language.

And with massive public anti-war protests throughout the world, it attempted to show that its stand was in line with those protests. An officially orchestrated demonstration was arranged in Beijing for the purpose.

Thus, Mahathir Mohammed, being free of any attachment to or needs from Washington, became the only Asian leader with overt and sharp criticism of the war. He stood on March 24 before his country's Parliament to accuse the U.S. of being a cowardly and imperialist bully, adding that because of Washington's policies the UN and international law became meaningless and the world returned to the Stone Age.

However, it is misleading not to say that the Malaysian leader is also motivated by self-interest. Adopting any other position that is not consistent with the prevailing public opinion could have cost him a great deal of influence on the domestic political scene that he has been able, with difficulty, to win over after months of losing ground in favour of the country's Islamist parties and pro former Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ebrahim, forces.

But what about the views of the political and economic elite in Asia?

It can be said that such elite are generally opposed to the war against Iraq given its negative fall-out on their countries' security, political and economic conditions. Asia's political elite, for example, hold that launching the war without an authorisation from the UN Security Council is a violation of international law and norms, and a reckless action that proves that Washington does not consider others' interests and stability including that of its close Asian allies.

Of course, the reference here is to the possible increase of radical trends in Asia that may cause security chaos and eventually lead to the fall of moderate regimes, especially if Washington fails to achieve its objectives or if the war is prolonged.

Such concerns are clearly demonstrated by statements made by some political elite in the Central Asian states bordering Afghanistan such as Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan which suffered considerably from the Taliban's agenda of internationalising the concept of Islamic Jihad.

With the rising anti-war sentiment within Islamic communities, the hard-line groups will certainly take the opportunity to re-emerge and cause instability. Needless here to say, immediately after the first strike against Baghdad, Al Qaida and Taliban fugitives in Afghanistan managed to launch their biggest military operation against Kandahar since the overthrow of the Taliban regime.

As far as views held by Asia's economic elite are concerned, they have a similar position although their motivations are totally different.

In their case, opposition to the war and denunciation of Washington's policies stem from the war's negative economic effects as represented by the decline in the U.S. dollar exchange rates, driving up the cost of Asian products overseas, prevailing recession in the American markets known for absorbing a great deal of Asia's goods, and possible reduction in energy supply and rising oil prices.

Other negative economic impacts include possible loss of foreign remittances from labourers working in the Gulf should they be forced to return home due to an escalation of the war. There is also the possibility of disruption of foreign investments in case of security problems or terrorist incidents arising from the consequences of the war.

In this context, one can point to criticism and displeasure express-ed by some Indonesian economic figures against the current war.

According to them, Washing-ton's war in Iraq is responsible of provoking extremist Indonesian Islamic groups, leading to possibilities of terrorist attacks against soft targets frequented by Westerners - as happened in last October's Bali massacre - and consequently damaging Indone-sia's fragile economy.

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