A SENSE OF ASIA
Fighting terror inch by inch: The deadly race
See the Sol Sanders Archive
By Sol Sanders
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
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July 29, 2004
After pirates boarded and ransacked an LNG tanker in the Malacca Straits July 26, Singapore and Malaysian deputy prime ministers met to step up their security collaboration. More than half the world’s oil and gas move through this Asian chokepoint as well as a huge volume of other merchandise. A tanker is not exactly the place where you would want to have a firefight.
Bangkok, after examining 200 madrassas – Islamic religious schools teaching young boys – in its three Moslem-majority southern provinces, has closed down 50. They played a crucial role in recruitment of the teenage terrorists who attacked schools and police stations early this year and who continue to produce incidents in support of armed separatists.
In mid-July Jordan’s King Abdullah spent more time than any Mideast visitor ever has in Seoul holding President Roh Moo-Huyn’s hand, stiffening his resolve to become the No. 3 contributor to peacekeeping in Iraq. Roh has to face down public opinion in the backlash of the cut-and-run of Phuilippines President Gloria Arroyo and Spanish President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
A mid-July gathering of Mideast foreign ministers in Cairo issued a final communique condemning "all terrorist acts against civilians, governmental, humanitarian, and religiousinstitutions, as well as international organizations and diplomaticmissions operating in Iraq” It hinted at the possibility of the Iraqi interim government accepting troops from neighboring countries it earlier had refused.
A battle royal has already surfaced in the Pakistani media over hints that President Pervez Musharraf would answer Washington’s call for Pakistani boots on the ground. Meanwhile, there was a call for help from [of all places] UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan, presumably to provide security for the newly appointed UN representative in Baghdad, a Pakistani diplomat.
Malaysia’s new broom Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi during a visit to Washington [to heal the old rifts of his U.S.-baiting predecessor Mohammad Mahathir] promised he would send a medical unit to Iraq. And there were hints Malaysia, with its extensive UN peacekeeping experience, might be part of the larger “Moslem” force which is one of Washington’s proposals.
President Megawati Sukarnoputri, seeking reelection in the horsetrading season preceding the September runoff for Indonesia’s first directly elected president, reversed a court decision which would have thrown out convictions of some of the perpetrators of the 2002 Bali bombing that cost more than 200 lives. [Terrorists bombed the central elections office just to remind everyone they are still there.]
Baby steps? Certainly.
Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, the riparian powers, have still not integrated their Malacca Straits patrols, much less accepted a U.S. proposal not only to integrate the naval operations but to incorporate an on-board marine force. [It raised the ghosts of that demagogue Sukarno’s “necolim” {neocolonialism}]. Even the little LNG drama wasn’t enough — yet — to get the three to move to the next step of mixed patrols. The reluctance flies in the face of growing piracy incidence and the obvious opportunities it might afford Osama Bin Laden’s allied Southeast Asian network, the Jemaat Islamiah.
It’s not clear at all that Bangkok has the right mix of suppression and reform in Thailand’s Moslem majority areas, a conundrum at the heart of every counter-insurgency effort. South Korea’s expeditionary force would be sent off at a time when there are alarming evidences of discord between its military with their experience of half a century of North Korean chicanery and Roh’s efforts to buy off Pyongyang’s nuclear hostility. King Abdullah, with his legitimate concerns about destabilization in the region but an early advocate of a return to strongman rule in Baghdad, may not be the best emissary to persuade the reforming Koreans.
As Egypt’s statesman Anwar Sadat once said after a typical blow-hard meeting of Arab officialdom, “Oh you know how we talk”, official Arab statements may not be fungible at any bank, but the U.S. and its anti-terrorist partners are engaged in a conflict of ideas as well as weapons. Moving Megawati on any issue hasn’t been easy. But the Australians’ expressed indignation at the court ruling, even at the risk of igniting more Indonesian-Australian antagonism, seems to have been worth it; nudging Djakarta will have to continue to be the game.
Baby steps? Difficult and complex? Yes, of course.
It is the nature of asymmetrical conflict – that is, when a weaker enemy chooses unorthodox methods to counter overwhelming force of his opponent – the victories will mostly be small. The defeats, however, can be large. The U.S. [or, indeed, Europe or Japan or Australia] may suffer another 9/11. For after all there was a decade in which the West led by Washington did little to counter the international terrorist networks while they were incubating. While the U.S. political class and the media debate who knew what and when in the runup to 9/11, the clock is ticking against a continuing battle on many fronts.
Sol W. Sanders, (solsanders@comcast.net),
is an Asian specialist with more than 25 years in the region, and a former correspondent
for Business Week, U.S. News & World Report and United Press International.
He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
July 29, 2004
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