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Malaysia and Iran: Axis of
reason?
By Ehsan Ahrari
During a recent visit of Iranian President
Mohammad Khatami to Malaysia, it was announced that
Islam's role in fighting terrorism would be one of the
topics of discussion. Given the unsuccessful role of
Malaysia in attempting to forge a generally accepted
definition of "terrorism" last April, and given the fact
that Iran is accused of supporting the Hezbollah of
Lebanon and other Islamist groups in Israeli-occupied
territories, this meeting should be viewed as part of
growing attempts by Muslim states to develop some
credible responses of their own regarding transnational
terrorism.
The international community's
perceptions of Malaysia and Iran are different. The
former is a Muslim country that once not only rode the
tide of the "Asian miracle" of the 1990s, but also
suffered a great deal because of the Asian "economic
meltdown" of 1998. For the year 2002, however, the
Malaysian economy is expected to grow 4.5 percent. Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad cuts an interesting picture as
an Asian authoritarian ruler, who insists on the primacy
of "Asian and Islamic values". He labels Western values
"merely Western" while Islamic values are "universal".
He has long pursued the two-pronged policy of
integrating Islam with modernization and economic
progress - factors that made his country a leading East
Asian nation. He might be right in believing that
"Malaysia's influence would one day supplant that of the
Arab Gulf states, whose prosperity was entirely
dependent on oil revenues".
Mahathir may be
considered a rightful heir to a venerable legacy, a long
line of such charismatic Asian leaders as Mao Zedong,
Jawaharlal Nehru, Sukarno and Lee Kwan Yew, to name a
few. He is decidedly an autocrat but, on the issue of
terrorism, he has demonstrated a genuine desire to
internationalize the concerns of Muslim countries, while
expressing his willingness to cooperate with the United
States in fighting it. While President George W Bush's
approach to "war" on global terrorism focuses largely on
the use of military power, in Mahathir's view this war
comprises several intricate dimensions, including, above
all, the use of multilateral forums for comprehensive
debates for developing multilateral solutions. In that
sense, his meeting with Iran proved significant.
The Iranian government of President Khatami is
the successor of the Islamic revolution of 1979. As
such, its political character is still a work in
progress. Domestically, the Iranian government is still
torn between the pragmatists - led by Khatami himself -
and hardliners led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the
Supreme Leader of the revolution. This reality is most
vividly manifested in the continued Iranian support of
the Hezbollah Party of Lebanon, which has declared a
ceaseless jihad on Israel, and in Iran's fervent
condemnation of the almost moribund peace process
between Palestine and Israel.
Even though
Khatami had hoped to conduct a "civilizational dialogue"
with the American people and would have preferred
reaching a rapprochement with the United States
government, the domestic climate in both countries has
proved to be least propitious for such measures. Iran
did seek some sort of low-level understanding with the
Bush administration prior to the initiation of Operation
Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan; however, the United
States appeared too busy with that military operation to
consider Iran's overtures earnestly.
For
Mahathir, the economic salvation of Muslim countries is
through modernization, institutionalization of modern
scientific knowledge and keeping pace with globalization
as a highly intricate phenomenon. He admonished Muslim
countries that their continued technological
backwardness and poverty might result in their easily
being bullied, or even recolonized, by the
industrialized nations. This admonition is delivered as
an exhortation, and a clarion call for Muslim countries
to put their economic houses in order. Mahathir is of
the view that, since Muslim countries themselves suffer
so much from political extremism and terrorism, they
should focus on systematically tackling it, rather than
looking for scapegoats, advice that became of utmost
significance in the aftermath of the September 11
terrorist attacks on the United States. A good starting
point in dealing with the scourge of terrorism, in his
view, was to agree on its definition. However, when he
suggested - during a conference of the Organization of
Islamic Conference (OIC) that his country was hosting
last April - that "all attacks on civilians, including
those by Palestinian suicide bombers, constituted
terrorism", he found virtually no takers. Arab leaders
viewed those attacks as legitimate self-defense.
While opposing the expansion of the United
States' anti-terrorism war to countries outside
Afghanistan, Mahathir, during his recent visit to
Washington, signed an agreement to cooperate with that
country against Islamist groups operating in Southeast
Asia. Thus, as a country that is engaged with Washington
against transnational terrorism, it is important that
Malaysia conduct its own dialogue with Iran on the issue
that affects all Muslim countries.
Ironically,
Iran's own support of the Hezbollah of Lebanon or other
Islamist parties within the Israeli-occupied territories
might remain virtually unaffected as a result of this
meeting in Malaysia. That support has the powerful
backing of the hardliners in Iran, who still envisage
themselves as the true heir of the orthodoxy of the late
ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and consider the activities
of those Islamist parties as an integral part of a
larger struggle between the Mustadafeen (the
"downtrodden") and the Mustakbareen (the "arrogant)
worldwide. From the perspective of the Khatami-led
pragmatists, this mega-framework belongs to a bygone
era, and should not be the basis of Iran's foreign
policy. However, they cannot afford to be openly
critical of it, especially while Iran's economy, after
performing poorly because of fallen oil prices during
the past years, has appeared to be on the mend only
recently.
At the same time, since Bush's latest
bumper-sticker lumping of Iran in a so-called "axis of
evil" has left little wiggle room for the pragmatists.
Thus, they must intensify their endeavors to find other
avenues for economic interactions, such as widening the
scope of Iran's trade with the European Union, and
seeking similar cooperative undertakings with a Muslim
entrepreneurial country such as Malaysia.
The
Mahathir-Khatami rounds of talk might not produce
immediate or significant breakthroughs on terrorism.
However, they might lead to enhanced cooperation between
these countries that bring to the negotiating table two
very important assets. Malaysia has the economic
know-how and a burning desire to intensify a scientific
approach to solving the problems of Islamic societies.
Iran has the oil revenues to bankroll ambitious programs
of economic development and modernization. Its real
gross domestic product (GDP) grew by about 4.3 percent
for 2001, but is expected to be a bit lower in the next
year. As a result of stabilization of oil prices for the
past two years, Iran was able to establish a
multibillion-dollar "stabilization fund", which will
come handy during hard times and especially for
bankrolling future economic development programs.
If Malaysia and Iran succeed in putting their
tremendously productive forces to work, they will strike
a major blow against terrorism that thrives under
conditions of acute economic underdevelopment and its
related human deprivation and misery.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is a Norfolk,
Virginia, US-based strategic analyst.
(©2002
Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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