By Design or Accident: Reflections on Asian Security

13. Singapore’s Stand on Iraq: Clear and Forthright

13 Singapore’s Stand on Iraq: Clear and Forthright A friend asked me last week, before Foreign Minister S. Jayakumar’s 14 March statement in Parliament, why Singapore had not taken a stand on Iraq. When I said, “on this, silence may be golden”, he thought I was being facetious. I explained that with the mounting anti-war tide, while it had been a season for posturing and grandstanding, it was also a time for sober reflection. It might be necessary sometimes to stake clear public positions quickly because of pressing domestic or international reasons, but should Singapore be rushed into taking a stand? Unlike Britain,Australia or some countries in the Middle East, Singapore was providing neither combat troops nor attack bases. It has no direct political or economic interest in Iraq. As a small country, it could not afford to join the French game of trying to bring the American hyper-power down by a notch or two. Nor did Singapore have a restive Muslim majority to manage, as the leaders of Pakistan or Indonesia have, or a fundamentalist Islamic challenge as the Parti Islam SeMalaysia poses in Malaysia. So if there were no compelling international or domestic reasons for it to rush to take a stand, I said, Singapore could Singapore’s Stand on Iraq 53 take its time to do so. The political culture here is pragmatic, but on most issues of importance, the Government will eventually state its position, honestly and forthrightly. But my interlocutor would not let me off the hook so easily. With debates raging in the world on issues like a possible American attack without United Nations authorization, and on the moral dimensions of the coming war, Singapore’s silence seemed like a shirking of responsibility, he opined. I tried to put across the complexities and misconceptions surrounding the Iraq issue. Was war as unambiguously immoral as some anti-war activists make it out to be? Ask the Kuwaitis who have experienced Iraqi invasion and a brutal occupation, or ask many ordinary Iraqis themselves. Or even ask the Iranians, whose country was also attacked by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. There will be loss of civilian life during an American invasion, but these will probably be a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of his own countrymen that Mr Saddam has killed. Will it be a violation of international law if war is waged without UN authorization? The UN is ideally the best way to go, but what can one say about it when, for twelve years, it has been unable to enforce its resolutions for Mr Saddam to disarm unconditionally? But even many ofAmerican’s allies in Europe are against the war, my friend interjected. Not quite correct, I had to admonish. The Iraq issue is indeed fracturing the Western alliance, and public opinion in many countries is against the war. But the leaders of Britain, Italy and Spain must have made calculations of their national interests, and they are not tiny states: The combined populations and gross 54 By Design or Accident domestic product of these three match those of Germany and France. What of the Muslim world? By going to war against Mr Saddam, the United States is hardly going to war against Islam. Indeed, over the past decade, the US has fought two wars in the Balkans to protect Muslims from genocide by Christian authorities. Many Muslims may not see it that way because of their sense of fraternity with Muslims worldwide, especially those under attack from nonMuslims . Still, several Arab states have provided facilities to the US for the war against Iraq. The mood among most Arab governments by now must be one of resignation over something unavoidable, coupled with calculations of their interests in the post-war landscape. More may quietly assist the US to have the task finished quickly. When it came out on 14 March, Professor Jayakumar’s statement impressed my friend with its clarity and “boldness”. There was no fudging, even in the dangerous times we live in. But while satisfied that a stand had at last been taken, my friend could not resist a last lunge. Was Singapore not too closely identified with the US, making us the odd man out in the region? I acknowledged that Singapore’s stated position on Iraq was different from its neighbours, especially Indonesia and Malaysia. Their national interests required different stances. But in terms...