Applying The Malaysian Formula To Iraq
Applying The Malaysian Formula To Iraq
Today’s Iraq faces two monumental problems: the increasingly violent insurgency and the deepening sectarian strife, both feeding on each other with great devastation. Iraq reminds me of Malaysia of the 1950s and 60s.
Malaysia then was wrecked by a vicious communists insurgency that among other things successfully ambushed and killed the highest-ranking British colonial officer in the country. As for inter-communal hostilities, the Malays and Chinese had just had a bout of mutual madness slaughtering each other in the political vacuum that followed the sudden Japanese surrender in World War II.
Yet today Malaysia is an independent nation free of colonial rule and with its ethnically diverse citizens living in relative harmony. As for the communist insurgency, its leader now living in neighboring Thailand recently petitioned a Malaysian for the right of return. Imagine a former bandit court now having faith in the court system!
Malaysia’s success was remarkable considering that communism had then successfully penetrated the region. In Vietnam, America did not prevail despite having superior forces and considerably more resources.
While then Defense Secretary McNamara was obsessed with “body counts” as a measure of the war’s progress, Malaysian commanders were making every effort to ensure that their troops were not being senselessly killed in ambushes or civilians needlessly caught in the crossfire.
Malaysian leaders intuitively knew that for every innocent victim killed or maimed, the whole family, clan and village would then become the enemy. For every hamlet “destroyed in order to save it,” you would have created an entirely new set of committed foes. The body count would then become not a measure of progress but perversely, the exact opposite; a figure not to be celebrated but condemned.
More sinister would be the temptation to inflate such figures. If our troops could be killed in “friendly fire,” how much easier it would be to have the innocents get caught in the crossfire and then be labeled “insurgents.”
The Malaysian “Emergency” was even worse, with Communist China supporting it. It took the genius of the Malaysian leader at the time, the late Tun Razak, not to treat China as a potential enemy but an ally. That was a bold step at the height of the Cold War, and long before Nixon saw the wisdom of engaging China.
Ignoring the prevailing wisdom, Tun Razak bravely visited China seeking its leaders’ assurance not to support the insurgency in return for Malaysia recognizing China and initiating diplomatic and trade relations.
Without China’s support, and with Malaysians increasingly fed up with the violence, the insurgency rapidly collapsed. By not treating China as a potential enemy, it did not become the enemy. As for trade, China is today Malaysia’s major trading partner.
When I read on the increasing number of insurgents killed in Iraq, I am far from being assured, haunted by the curse of the old “body count.” Imagine such news being broadcasted in the Arab world, with images of Abu Ghairab as the prop.
Those Islamic terrorists are terrorists first, and Muslims second; they are a threat to all peace-loving people, Muslims and non-Muslims. Defeating them would require the effort and cooperation of all. That will not happen until we, the West and the Muslim world, recognize this commonality of purpose.
Today there is widespread misperception in the Muslim world that America’s war on terror is nothing more than a barely concealed assault on Islam itself, the old Crusade resurrected. There is an equally dangerous misperception in the West that the values and norms of these radicals represent mainstream Islam.
If great wars have been precipitated by misunderstandings of much lesser magnitude, imagine the dangers posed by such monumental misconceptions.
It is just as baffling to the average Westerner that Osama bin Ladin and his ilk remain popular in Pakistan as it is for the Muslim villager to comprehend why the Pat Robertsons command such respect in the White House. Granted, the evil deeds perpetrated by Osama are in no way comparable to the gaffe of a Pat Robertson, nonetheless the underlying assumptions and mindset differ only in degree, not kind.
When America denies visas to respected Muslims like Tariq Ramadan and Yusuf Islam, it is implicitly treating them, and by inference their followers, as potential enemies. The slope from potential to real enemy is made steeper with each incident.
America’s war on terror assumes that once a terrorist, always a terrorist, or that the only good terrorist is a dead one, a residuum of the Cold War mentality. The Malaysian approach was the exact opposite. It saw immense propaganda value of a captured or surrendered terrorist repenting.
The world too has seen many a terrorist subsequently becoming statesmen, with a few even winning the Nobel Peace Prize! Those we regard as terrorists today were once our heroes. We embraced them as freedom fighters in White House ceremonies when the objects of their terror were the Soviets.
America needs the Muslim world to successfully execute the war on terror. Likewise, the Muslim world needs American help in ridding the extremists within its midst. This common objective would best be achieved with America and the Islamic world not treating each other as potential enemies.
November 5th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
When the US waged war on Iraq and Saddam Hussein the stated official and seemingly noble objective was the destruction of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Its real objective - former US Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan recently let the cat out of the bag - was oil.
The US did not find any WMD and then went on to disingenuously justify its UN-unsanctioned aggression by saying that at least it had rid Iraq of a tyrant and that the world is better for that. What hypocrisy!
The only way the US can make this world a better place is to admit it was wrong, admit to its war crimes and sincerely offer to make restitution for the damage it had done. However, I doubt that will ever happen, at least not within our lifetimes, and Arab Muslim world will be Arab Muslim world and US will be US and never the twain shall meet.
Since we are mere observers and all’s the world is stage, we can expect the actors to wage more war and inflict more destruction on each other and when they have finally finished each other off the world still might not be a better place but it probably will be a more peaceful place. So there could well be is a method in the present madness.
I don’t think the comparison between the Iraq of today and the Malaya during the Emergency is a fair one. If Malaysia had faced a enemy like the US she would have been flattened in a day.
As for Tun Razak I think he was more fortune’s child than genius.
China in the 1950s and 1960s was a country in turmoil. The US had threatened to drop the atomic bomb (at least that was what General McArthur had suggested) on Beijing to effect a quick resolution to the Korean war, just like what it had done to end the war with Japan. And there always was the fear that the US would use Vietnam as an excuse to extend the war into China because of her support for Vietnam. And in doing so the US would have prevented the other Asian countries from falling under the clutches of the “evil” communists – the so-called Domino theory.
So China, with her immense internal problems and external threats, really did not have the stomach for lending her support for more revolution outside her borders. Tun Razak, in engaging China at such a time in her history, could be seen as a stroke or genius. But I see him as fortune’s child.
November 5th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
“As for Tun Razak I think he was more fortune’s child than genius.” - Outsider
- That was well said, brilliant infact! Just sheer luck.
Even his son Najib Tun Razak, the Deputy President UMNO at its current on-going UMNO General Assembly proudly said it that Malay brains(oops, the UMNO specie ie) needs 54 years to mature! So I fully agree, it can’t be Tun Razak’s effort, no credit due. Go read Najib’s opening speech.
November 6th, 2007 at 12:17 am
Monday November 5, 2007
Education important for a talented 2057 generation, says Najib
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/11/5/nation/19380232&sec=nation
November 6th, 2007 at 6:40 am
i doubt malaysian formula could work in Iraq, one has to study the history of Arab world. Firstly, iraqis seek allegiance to their own tribes and sect ,secondly there are many factions with different agendas,thirdly there are foreign elements like al queda. The sectarian feud started way back before the birth of Iraq. Nation building has no meaning.The insurgents attacked the American soldiers as well as iraqi people,al-queda want to overthrow some western governments but it also want to overthrow the neighbour Arab governments.Lot of confusion.
The whole place is a mess. US is talking crap about democracy .It all about competition for resources- oil.Eliminating Sadam was a mistake,i am not saying he was a saint but you need iron fist rule.It now open a can of worms and it does not know how to close it back .
November 6th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
“It took the genius of the Malaysian leader at the time, the late Tun Razak, not to treat China as a potential enemy but an ally. That was a bold step at the height of the Cold War, and long before Nixon saw the wisdom of engaging China.”
But Nixon visited China in 1972 (in the aftermath of the Ping Pong diplomacy initiative of Henry Kissinger) and Tun Razak only met Mao in Beijing two years later in 1974.
November 6th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
It’s two different scenarios altogether - Iraq and Malaya.
The Japanese Occupation just ended and the British was back to exert its dominance. The Malayan Communist Party (MCP), who took to the jungles duing the Japanese rule, was out to claim its rightful position as liberators but the British Military Administration (BMA) wanted none of that.
On June 16, 1948 Emergency was proclaimed by the BMA. A low-intensity warfare broke out between the MCP and the British Army that was to last till 1960. Commonwealth troops were later brought in to beef up defence and to bring the battle against communism a notch up.
In Iraq, the Americans, in the eyes of the Arabs, are the aggressors and are being treated as such. The fundamental fight against terrorism, as practised by the British, was winning the hearts and minds of the people. You need to seperate the fish from the water, as preached by Chairman Mao.
The Briggs Plan of the 1950s was a clever initiative by the British to enforce the seperation. The Americans tried this in Vietnam but failed miserably largely because they failed to appreciate the Vietnamese resolve well enough.
In Malaya the fight against Commuinism became a people’s war. Only a fraction of the populace was for the Communists and most did so for fear of retribution, which in many instances were swift and methodical. The aborigines in the deep jungles were duped into supporting the terrorists but timely use of the Special Forces (SAS) and later our own commandos (MSSR) won them over.
Like what dire strait has said there is plenty of confusion in the Arab World. You need not go far just look at the Plestanians. They fought the Isrealists and now they are fighting among themselves.
November 7th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Well, if you are talking about Arab world, the only reason why the Romans were not interested to enslave them is because they think that, “These people will be more of a liability than an asset”.