Iraq war sends the world back to colonialist era

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The war in Iraq will set a bad precedence for countries to reinstate colonialism, should the international community stand by and let the United States get away with attacking a sovereign nation, analysts here have warned.

Calling the attack as the first act of invasion in the global era, political experts on international affairs suggested that the United Nations take action to stop the war.

"Should the UN let this war continue, then it will send the world back to the times when might meant right," Dewi Fortuna Anwar of the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI) told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

Analyst Kusnanto Anggoro from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) agreed and added that Indonesia could be a target of invasion in the future if no concerted action was taken against the U.S.

He said that the U.S. strike on Iraq could set the precedence in justifying one country's taking preemptive armed measures against another sovereign country.

"For instance, Australia could attack Indonesia in the name of eradicating terrorism and restoring regional security," Kusnanto told the Post.

The Iraq war could also justify other powerful countries' setting aside multilateralism in favor of their own interests, which would endanger the world order.

In the wake of the worldwide antiterrorism campaign, Australia had proposed the United Nations Charter to include an amendment to allow a country to conduct preemptive strikes on another country for reasons of security, which provoked angry responses from its Asian neighbors.

The Iraq war has sparked anxiety among the international community as it differs from the Gulf War in 1991 and the attack on Afghanistan in 2001, when U.S.-led coalition forces took up arms against Iraq and Afghanistan with the consent of the UN.

Washington has several times changed its reasons for invading Iraq this time around, from its original intention of disarming Iraq's arsenals of weapons of mass destruction, to toppling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and rebuilding Iraq as the regional center of democracy in the Middle East.

U.S. President George W. Bush declared war on Iraq after issuing an ultimatum for Saddam Hussein and his sons to go into self-exile and abandon their country. This was also the first time in decades that one head of state had demanded another, legitimate, head of state to abdicate, let alone go into self- exile.

Throughout Asia, there has been growing concerns about the possibility of the U.S. shifting its target to North Korea once the Iraq war is over.

Indonesia has "deplored" the U.S.-led attack on Iraq and has called for the UN Security Council to hold an emergency meeting to urge the U.S. to stop the war.

Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said that currently, the country was making diplomatic efforts along with other Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) countries to push for the emergency meeting.

"We have conducted talks with Malaysia, as the incumbent chairman of NAM, regarding the issue," Marty said, adding that there had been no indications so far that the emergency meeting would take place.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who also opposes the use of force against Iraq, has also sought measures along with French and German leaders to end the war immediately.

Analyst Dewi urged Jakarta to join the multinational efforts calling for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

"The UNSC could stand up and say that the attack is illegal, and declare sanctions against the U.S. to ensure that this will never happen again," she said.

However, Kusnanto said that imposing sanctions on the U.S. would be unfeasible, as in real politics, major countries tended to hesitate in adopting the same stance as NAM members, which were mostly developing countries economically dependent on major states.