Govt cautioned on U.S. motives in Iraq

Muninggar Sri Saraswati and Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

An Indonesian Muslim leader has cautioned the government against the U.S. threat to attack Iraq, saying it could be motivated by a desire to control the world's oil production rather than to combat terrorism.

"I'm curious about why the U.S. insists on launching a military operation against Iraq. Furthermore, telling the world that Iraq is developing a nuclear project is a big mistake for the U.S.," Achmad Sjafi'i Maarif, chairman of Muhammadiyah, the country's second largest Muslim organization, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

He said the UN had failed to prove the allegation during its latest inspection in Iraq in 1998.

Despite Iraq's agreement on Tuesday for the unconditional return of UN arms inspectors, the U.S. said the offer would fail to prevent UN action to disarm Baghdad and called for a tough new Security Council resolution to deal with Saddam.

The U.S., which has publicly made its case for regime change in Iraq, further called Iraq's move to readmit inspectors a tactic that would fail.

Nevertheless, the situation has been given mixed reactions from countries on the Security Council with the right to veto, especially Russia and China, as the two have yet to decide whether or not the resolution is required.

Asked how the government should respond to the U.S policy on Iraq, Sjafii said: "I'm not interested in commenting on what (President) Megawati (Soekarnoputri) has to do. But I am warning you that unlike the Gulf War in 1991, the U.S. has gradually lost support from several countries in the Middle East and Europe."

Sjafii also criticized the U.S. for its failure to act as savior of the world's civilization, a role it should have played following the breakup of its longtime rival, the Soviet Union, in 1989. Instead, it had acted more as a "political cowboy for the sake of certain interests."

"If the Bush administration has an antipathy against (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein, it should not force (the UN) to impose tough resolutions against Iraq because it will only harm civilization there."

Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population, has been caught in a difficult situation ever since the U.S launched the war on terrorism following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks blamed on Osama bin Laden's international terrorist group al-Qaeda. Then, Indonesian Muslims launched protests over what they considered to be efforts to discredit Islam.

Meanwhile, Riza Sihbudi, an observer on Middle East issues, questioned the UN's double standards regarding Iraq and Israel, given that "the two countries have reportedly been developing weapons of mass destruction."

"We need just to have a look at the entire U.S. policy on Iraq to see it is not clear. If the U.S. insists on destroying weapons of mass destruction, I guess Iraq is not the only one because Israel, too, has the weapons.

"If the U.S. insists on imposing stern action against countries it considers to have violated the resolution (on weapons of mass destruction), how about Israel?" he asked.

Indonesian Society for Middle East Studies (ISMES) vice president Smith Alhadar said the U.S. plan to remove Saddam was triggered by its ambition to control the world's oil production sources, especially in Iraq, considering that "Iraq is the only rival of the U.S. among Middle East countries."

"I hope Megawati will be wise enough to see whether the U.S. campaign has been motivated by economic reasons instead of security reasons," Smith told the Post.

Iraq, which has the world's second largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia with an estimated 112 billion barrels, has long been opposed to U.S. policies, and has given both moral and financial support to Palestine in its fight against Israel.

U.S. oil firms have been excluded from Iraq's huge oil reserves since the end of the 1980s when Washington-Baghdad relations deteriorated.

Meanwhile, AFP reported that companies from a dozen countries, led by Tatneft of Russia and TotalFinaElf of France, had made agreements with Iraq. But many will only start after the end of UN sanctions against Saddam's government.

Riza doubted whether the U.S. policy was still related to its antiterrorism campaign because it had failed to present evidence that Iraq harbors international terrorists.

"The U.S. recently disclosed that there are 60 countries in this world that allegedly have links to terrorist groups. Iraq has never been the only one (with terrorist links)," Riza told the Post.

The U.S. policy on Iraq has also drawn objections from many of Indonesia's Muslim figures. Hasyim Muzadi, of the country's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), noted Muslim scholars Nurcholis Madjid and Azyumardi Azra of the State Islamic Institute (IAIN) Syarief Hidayatullah are among those opposed to the U.S. plan to attack Iraq.