Straw warned of backlash over Iraq

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja and Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesian Muslim leaders warned on Thursday that unilateral attacks against Iraq would spark widespread hatred against the United States and its allies, even among moderate Muslim groups.

In a meeting with visiting British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jack Straw on Thursday, the Muslim leaders underlined that unilateral actions would destabilize the region.

"This (the attack) will only legitimize reprisal by fundamentalists and radical Muslims and weaken the influence of moderate Muslim here and around the globe," said noted Muslim scholar Nurcholish Madjid.

He further said that resentment against the U.S. and its allies would spread to all Muslim groups as the attacks would only confirm the radicals' view that the West was against Islam.

Nahdlatul Ulama chairman Hasyim Muzadi, who leads around 40 million Muslims in the country, shared this view, saying that the hatred would spread even among the non-Muslim community.

"Almost all Indonesians disagree with an attack against Iraq, and such a move will widen the gap between the West and us," the senior cleric said after the meeting with Straw.

He asserted that the United Nations should be the leading agency in deciding the Iraq settlement and that there had been no evidence so far indicating that Iraq had produced weapons of mass destruction.

Straw was on his two-day visit to the country, which has the largest Muslim population in the world, and held meetings with President Megawati Soekarnoputri, his Indonesian counterpart Hassan Wirayuda and other leaders.

During those meetings, Straw tried to explain the British stance on the Iraq issue, as the world considers Britain to be the most stalwart supporter of the U.S. move to attack Iraq.

"None of us likes the regime of Saddam Hussein. ... But the objective...is the disarmament of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction," he said after meeting Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda.

"There is no reason, in my view, if Saddam Hussein accepts this, for that disarmament not to take place peacefully. It can take place peacefully. The hard decision is by him," Straw added.

He underlined that both Britain and the U.S. had taken the UN route and pleaded with the Muslim world to see that they had followed the decision of the UN Security Council thus far.

The visiting minister however, asserted that sometimes a threat of force was necessary to complement a diplomatic effort to ensure the disarmament.

In his speech during the meeting with Muslim leaders, Straw said that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction also posed a threat to the Muslim world and not just to the West.

"The consequences of a failure of nerve to deal with the threat by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are potentially devastating for Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

"If he continues to get away with it, other would-be proliferators will take heart and the world will become a far more dangerous place," he said.

Despite Straw's explanation, Indonesia reiterated its stance that it would not accept any unilateral attacks on Iraq and counted on recommendations from the UN Security Council to end the dispute in a peaceful manner.

Straw is slated to meet Vice President Hamzah Haz on Friday before he continues his Southeast Asian tour in Kuala Lumpur.