Part 1 of 2 : Sept. 11 changed American foreign policy

Hassan Wirajuda, Foreign Minister, Jakarta

Great is the impact of the Iraq war. It will take several years before it is possible for us to fully assess the enormity of its effect on the global political landscape, on the global economy, and on the sensibilities of the human race.

I am not sure, however, that the Iraq war altered the global situation in any fundamental way.

There is still the threat of weapons of mass destruction, the problem of small arms used in intrastate conflicts, the issue of people smuggling and money laundering. There are still the soft threats of extreme poverty, the economic gaps between and within societies, the outbreak of epidemics, and the degradation of the environment.

Terrorism has been with us since a long time ago. It became international many years before the Iraq war.

There is even the question of whether the Iraq war is really over. It well may be that the Iraq war has been merely transformed from a conventional war in which one side had a prodigious superiority of arms and logistics, into a nation wide guerrilla war in which superiority of arms and logistics do not count for much in a hostile and unfamiliar social terrain.

It is possible that the forces of the old regime in Iraq, aided by foreign fighters infiltrated into the country, will continue to wage a prolonged guerrilla campaign. There is the dreadful prospect of the Balkanization of Iraq, with boundaries drawn on ethnic and sectarian lines.

With presidential elections fast approaching in the United States, and as the guerrilla war intensifies, the occupying power is resorting to precipitate "Iraqization." But the political infrastructures necessary for carrying out such a policy cannot be built overnight. And if Iraqization were implemented without the necessary political infrastructures, the result could be a deadly power vacuum.

The various rival factions in Iraq today could be sucked by that power vacuum into a new and terrible round of internecine violence -- a civil war. That would bring about even greater chaos and more enormous suffering to the Iraqi people.

Such dire developments would pose threats to the entire Gulf and Middle East region. It would be a setback to the cause of global peace. That is not what we wish to see in Iraq.

We fervently wish to see an Iraq that is governed by its own leaders who are elected in a process that is both orderly and democratic. We hope to witness the rehabilitation of Iraq, politically and socially as well as economically, under the multilateral tutelage of the United Nations.

We should like to see an Iraq that is at peace not only with itself, but also with its neighbors and with the rest of the world. Above all, we want to see an Iraq that is a force for global economic and political stability.

And we should also like to see the positive and constructive resolution of a number of global issues and problems that almost automatically come to mind at any mention of Iraq today.

Foremost among them is the issue of unilateralism and the hard questions that it addresses to the world community.

An arbitrary preemptive war has been waged against a sovereign state -- arbitrary because it is without sufficient justification in international law. Does that mean that any state may now individually and arbitrarily decide to use force preemptively against any other state perceived as a threat?

To many thoughtful observers, the debate between unilateralism and multilateralism has been settled by events. The United States, the foremost exponent and practitioner of the unilateral preemptive military strike, harried by the chaos in Iraq, has made a belated return to the United Nations -- for support, assistance and legitimation. One claims, "Ideology is now yielding to realities on the ground with reluctance."

Reversing a previous policy, it has also sought a multilateral dialogue on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula.

We welcome these developments, for they affirm the futility of the unilateral use of force. And they bring to light the wisdom of dialogue as a process that lead to multilateral cooperation.

The notion of a "just war," once condoned by the League of Nations, has no place in the world of today. It contravenes, the UN Charter, which arrogates unto the United Nations the sole competent authority to use military force in defense of the collective security of nations.

Yet, though we listen hard, we do not hear any renunciation of the doctrine of arbitrary preemptive war. Unilateralism therefore is by no means dead. It may just be waiting for the next opportunity and plausible pretext for leaping, with guns blazing, on the next perceived threat.

The events of the Iraq war have also clearly demonstrated the limits of military power in solving the security problems of the world. But we do not hear any acknowledgements of these limits.

It is true that the awesome firepower and technology of the invading forces leveled the infrastructures and routed the leadership of an entrenched. But they could not obliterate stubborn resistance from various quarters, not all of them associated with the ousted regime.

Nor could military technology remove the threat to global security that the occupation forces sought to wipe out. In that light, the situation in Iraq today bears momentous implications on the global war against terrorism.

The situation in Iraq today shows that smart bombs and air cover cannot turn the tide of a war against terrorism. Terrorists have no fixed addresses that can be obliterated once and for all with surgical military strikes.

Military operations often result in civilian casualties, and even when it is clear that the casualties are combatants, they generate a great deal of emotional vibrations. They create martyrs and make it so much easier for the terrorists to gather new recruits. The conflict areas then become safe havens and training grounds for terrorist operatives.

The war against terrorism is a struggle for the hearts and minds of populations. That struggle calls for wise policies, not smart bombs. In Iraq, it calls for the safety of citizens when they walk on the streets, for the availability of fuel, electricity and water, and for the assurance that their dignity is respected.

If the purpose of the narrow coalition in invading Iraq was to make their countries and the world safer and more secure, it is not at all clear that they have attained that goal. If the purpose was to liberate Iraq, today we are witnessing an Iraq occupied by foreign troops.

The coalition ousted the regime of Saddam Hussein because it supposedly threatened the region and the world with weapons of mass destruction. But until this late day, these weapons of mass destruction have not been found.

If those weapons have not been found because they do not exist, then an entire country has been leveled to the ground for no good reason.

In any case, after the war in Iraq, a keen sense of grievance has become even more pervasive all over the Muslim world. That can only be a setback in terms of global stability. For the issue of Iraq should not be viewed in isolation. How this problem is addressed will have repercussions on the longer-standing issue of Palestine and the challenge of terrorism.

Moreover, by rushing off to war without allowing the United Nations weapons inspection mission to run its full course, it is possible that the coalition has seriously damaged not only the UN inspection regime but also the international community's nonproliferation regime.

That would make the war in Iraq a debacle to the cause of global security and peace. The fruits of decades of intensive work to advance the disarmament agenda might have withered because of it.

One more fact of international life that the war in Iraq has starkly demonstrated is the need to apply regional solutions to regional problems.

The problem of Iraq was one of a repressive regime at odds with its neighbors, with a record of aggression and a reputation for harboring and willingness to use biological and chemical weapons. The regional countries failed to vigorously and constantly address this problem, which lurked in their midst for many years.

That failure gave external powers the perfect excuse and pretext for a massive intervention -- a preemptive war that devastated the country and left the region so much more insecure and vulnerable.

The above article is an abridged version of the minister's keynote address at the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) conference in Jakarta on Dec. 8.