LONDON, 30 July 2004 — Whether it is a mere coincidence or not, Malaysia has pre-empted any proposal for Muslim nations other than Iraq’s immediate neighbors to contribute troops to a multinational Muslim force to help secure peace in the country.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, during his visit to London a few days ago for talks with British counterpart Tony Blair, confirmed that Kuala Lumpur will be sending a “military medical force to Iraq” but stopped short of endorsing any Malaysian military peacekeeping role in the beleaguered Arab country.
“We are aware that our troops will be going to an area with a lot of risks that could place Malaysians in danger,” he stressed. “We are aware of the risks, but we believe that a medical contingent can help.”
Because the medical team would be going into a war situation, the government decided to send doctors and other medical personnel from the army. Prime Minister Badawi stressed that the government is constantly monitoring the situation and would send in the medical corps “at the appropriate time, and at the request of the Iraqi interim government.”
The Malaysian premier said that his country is not in a position to send a military peacekeeping force to Iraq because of “financial constraints”.
With government reserves totaling a record $53.4 billion, some $9 billion more than the UK for instance; GDP growth projected at an impressive 7 percent in 2004; an economy enjoying full employment (that is an unemployment rate of only 3.5 percent), cynics would argue that the official reason for not sending regular troops to Iraq is a bit thin.
The real reason is political. Malaysia is the Muslim success story — politically, economically, financially, and socially. It was the Mahathir government that led opposition to the unilaterally-declared Iraq War and the occupation of a fellow Muslim country by US and UK troops. Such a move could impinge on the credibility of the Badawi government and target Malaysians if and when they serve in Iraq.
Prime Minister Badawi, however, stressed that it is “important to create a situation of stability in Iraq in order for elections to be held and to give the opportunity for Iraqis to elect a government of their own choice. It is a very important opportunity for any people to choose a government of their choice.”
Events in Iraq yesterday — the murder of two Pakistanis by militants supposedly to deter Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf of sending any troops to Iraq; the kidnapping of a Somali working for a Kuwaiti company and the threat to man’s life if the company does not pull out of Iraq; and the suicide car bomb outside a police station near Baghdad which claimed the lives of over 60 people; could yet delay the implementation if not scupper the new proposal, which was agreed in a tripartite meeting between Crown Prince Abdullah, Iraqi Premier Iyad Allawi and the US Secretary of State Colin Powell in the Kingdom on Wednesday.
At the same time a British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee delivered another devastating report on Iraq, stressing that the country has become a “battleground for Al-Qaeda with appalling consequences for the Iraqi people. The failure to bring law and order to parts of Iraq created a vacuum into which criminal elements and militias have stepped.”
The 170-page report blames insufficient number of troops; the failure to impose law and order from the start of the occupation; and a “disappointing” response from Muslim countries to send peacekeeping troops to Iraq.
Whether the recommendation of the committee that OIC countries should urgently send troops to Iraq in the run-up to the proposed elections early next year, is heeded remains a moot point.
Others would question the timing of Colin Powell’s visit to the region. A Muslim peacekeeping force in Iraq with less than 100 days to go in one of the most important US presidential elections in modern history, may indeed hand an electoral victory to President George Bush on a face-saving plate rather than boost security and peace in Iraq.
Any Saudi proposal to send a contingent of troops from Muslim countries must be done through the aegis of the United Nations and the OIC; through an invitation from the Iraqi interim government; and the other side of the US presidential elections in November 2004. Iraq must not be allowed to become a pawn in the US elections.
The Saudi plan could also regenerate the OIC as an organization and present the new Secretary-General Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, a highly respected Arabic-speaking Turkish technocrat, an opportunity to rally the member countries from their long sleep into action to show the world that in their hour of need the Iraqi people can indeed rely on the Muslim countries to help them in their plight against terrorism, gangsterism, and indeed occupation.
