U.S. attack on Iraq may blunt SE Asia war on terror

U.S. attack on Iraq may blunt SE Asia war on terror

Dan Eaton, Reuters, Bangkok

A U.S. attack on Iraq would fan the flames of anti-Americanism in
Southeast Asia, making cooperation in the war on terror more
difficult and secretive, analysts and officials say.

A war with Iraq, which the United States says is gathering
weapons of mass destruction, would force leaders into delicate
balancing acts in a region home to Muslim militants, including
al-Qaeda operatives fleeing Afghanistan and Pakistan, they say.

There are Muslims throughout Southeast Asia, the huge majority
of them moderate. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim
country, while Malaysia and Brunei are also mostly Muslim.
Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia all
have minority Islamic communities.

An attack on Iraq would put many leaders in Southeast Asia,
who have publicly declared solidarity with the United States in
its post-Sept. 11 war on terror, in a tight spot, says Amris
Hassan, a member of parliament in secular Indonesian President
Megawati Soekarnoputri's party.

"It will put President Megawati in a very difficult and
delicate position regarding the Islamic movement and
organizations here," Hassan, who chairs a parliamentary
subcommission of foreign affairs and lectures at the University
of Indonesia, told Reuters by telephone.

"She has to walk a tightrope, and it's very difficult. There
is now more and more so-called Islamic propaganda in Indonesia
saying the U.S. is siding with Israel, the Jews, against
Muslims."

That has created an uncomfortable feeling among Indonesian
Muslims in general, he said.

Others agree, including Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kwan
Yew, who said last month the United States ran the risk of
radicalizing Southeast Asia's moderate Muslims.

"It would increase the domestic pressure in countries in
Southeast Asia," said Amitav Acharya, deputy director of the
Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS) in Singapore.

"It will make it most difficult for those countries to support
the United States as openly in the war on terror with public
displays of solidarity like arrests."

But those arrests are likely to keep coming, given the
economic and political influence of the United States.

"The U.S. has other means of persuading those countries to
continue to cooperate," said Magnus Ranstorp, an expert at the
Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St
Andrews University in Scotland.

And although the occasional al-Qaeda suspect is dug up and
handed to U.S. interrogators, "most of those arrested are from
local groups seen as a threat to Southeast Asian governments",
said a Western diplomat based in Bangkok.

There is a large dose of domestic politics involved in recent
highly publicized arrests, particularly in Malaysia and
Singapore, where concerns have been raised that leaders are using
the war on terror as a pretext to clamp down on dissent.

"Asian governments see these elements as a threat to national
security, so there will be a degree of common interest, but it
will have to be done very secretly," said the IDSS's Acharya.

"So far the intelligence sharing, to the extent it exists, has
been very secretive, and it will become even more so."

The highly publicized successes in recent weeks -- dozens of
arrests of Islamic militants in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore
and the Philippines -- could become a thing of the past.

And with all the focus on Iraq, as the United States tries to
muster support for an attack, there will be even less pressure
for other countries to act in the war on terror.

Countries such as Thailand -- one of Washington's oldest
allies in the region, which has declared solidarity but has yet
to arrest a single suspect amid fears of damaging its tourism
industry -- would have less incentive to do anything.

The same would go for countries less close to the United
States, such as Myanmar and Vietnam.

"One of the problems is it is going to obscure the necessity
to fight the war on terrorism," said Ranstorp. "The war on Iraq
will become the number one issue."