Describing the war in Iraq as "a watershed in the global system", senior Malaysian specialist in international relations and foreign affairs, Professor Lee Poh Ping of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia's Institute of Malaysian and International Studies shares his insights in this e-mail interview with malaysiakini.


Malaysiakini: The war in Iraq has exacerbated the fear that the United States is becoming a new imperialist power.

Lee: There is a very understandable fear that the US is turning into an imperialist power, if it is not o­ne already, after the Iraqi war.

My view is that while there are forces within America pushing the US into an imperialist direction, these forces do face some problems. o­ne is resistance they might face from those wishing to save American democracy.

While o­ne can argue that in past imperialism or colonialism, democracy in the metropolitan areas had been compatible with repression in the colonies, the present American push into imperialism may not be compatible with democracy in America. For these forces are actuated as much by moral and cultural decay in the US as by empire building. Their drive towards empire is an attempt to arrest this decay.

This involves an increasing military overlay in US society which might be resisted by the forces of democracy in America. For, even a conservative American scholar, Samuel Huntington, has maintained that America is not America unless it is a democracy.

Second, empire-building is expensive in that empire-builders have to spend to conduct their imperialist wars, which occur not infrequently, and also to run their empires. Nineteen-century imperialists succeeded because their imperial enterprises were ran at a profit. They could do so because each of the imperialist country had carved out an area where each and each alone, not other imperial powers, could exploit. What finally made the imperialists withdraw from their empires were the prohibitive costs, in money and lives, needed to maintain the empires.

Now, the US, in order to maintain its presumed empire after Iraq, will very likely have to fight a lot of wars to maintain it. These could prove very costly in terms of the weaponry (many hi-tech) and other military expenses involved, not to mention American lives. (The US may have been lucky to get away with a minimun of casualties in Iraq but may not be so lucky with war with other countries.)

Of course, monetary and human sacrifice may not prove a problem if others were to finance such wars or if the US population were willing to make such sacrifices. In some of the wars since the end of the Cold War, such as the first Gulf War, financing was not a problem as many countries helped out so much so that the US made a profit from it. It is very unlikely however many of these countries will finance US wars that are imperialist in intent, as they did not in this Iraqi war.

Moreover, US empire-building is more in the order of maintaining a capitalist system which the US (and not carving out an area for sole US exploitation, like imperialists of old), because it thinks it is the most competitive capitalist country, will profit. The US economy may have appeared supreme in the 90s, but not necessarily now.

Hence, it remains open to doubt whether the US can derive the economic benefits needed from an open international economy to enable it to maintain its empire. In which case, the empire builders have to rely o­n the US population for the requisite sacrifices. But the present Bush policy of tax cuts and increased military expenditure is anything but a call to the people to sacrifice. It is hence doubtful whether a gun-and-butter policy is conducive to maintaining an empire these days.

For o­ne indicator if the US is moving towards empire-building, look at how it manages post-war Iraq. If it basically runs Iraq by itself for the purpose of the oil, then we know it is heading towards empire-building. If it allows the UN a primary role and manages Iraq manifestly for the interests of the Iraqi people, then it may not be heading towards empire-building.

Assuming that the US is already a hegemon, is it benign or oppressive?

To be fair to the Americans, they have been relatively benign in the past. The danger now is that according to a French scholar, Dominique Moisi, people might now be resisting the America not because of its foreign policy but for what it is. If the neo-conservatives were to further stamp their authority o­n America, than it is likely to get less benign and will encounter more resistance.

If that is the case, how should Malaysia respond to it?

Malaysia should do three things. o­ne is to continue supporting the UN and international law as these are the best guarantee of the interests of small powers.

The second is to analyse the power shifts in the international system. Those that can resist this American power should be supported.

Third, probably the most important, is for Malaysia to understand the nature of the changes in American politics and society, and what that portend for a small country like Malaysia. Malaysia should then adjust to meet the challenges of a different America.

What about the security arrangements in Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific region?

It is obvious the US will take less seriously multilateral defence forums like the ARF (Asean Regional Forum) and concentrate o­n its bilateral security arrangements. But there is always the imponderable of dealing with China. We have to see how the US deals with China after this war for some clue as to how things will turn out.

And what impact will this new world order has o­n Nato?

Nato is split over this war. If the US neo-consevatives were to have things their way, they will marginalise Nato, if not completely render it irrelevant. Nato will probably not disband but continue in a much attenuated form, i.e. until the Europeans build up a credible united military force and force the US to take their military contribution seriously.

Can France, Russia, China and Germany - which led the opposition to the war o­n Iraq - effectively stop any unilateral Anglo-American military operations?

It is likely none of the four nations, or a combination of them, will have the will and capacity to thwart American military operations in those parts of the world that do not directly affect the vital interests of any of these four.

Will the United States go back to the United Nations and again embrace multilateralism?

At the moment, the US is reluctant to give up its unilateralist ways. Yet it may not completely be able to not deal with the UN, nor prevent the UN from playing some kind of a role, even in Iraq. At the minimum, it needs the UN for humanitarian functions in Iraq and also to give the US occupation some legitimacy, without which it cannot run Iraq .

For example, Bush has asked the UN to lift its sanctions o­n Iraq. Why bother if the US thinks the UN is irrelevant? Simply because it will be difficult to sell Iraqi oil if there is no Iraqi government recognised by international law. And the US needs every cent it can get from selling Iraqi oil to reconstruct Iraq.

What would happen to UN if US continues to pursue unilateralism?

I do not think UN will face the fate of the League of Nations even if the US were to continue with its unilateralist ways. As (UN Secretary-General) Kofi Annan said, the UN is more than Iraq. There are humanitarian functions for it to perform and there are many other UN peacekeeping duties elsewhere that do not have to rely o­n the US.

How will such uncertainties in international relations mean to Malaysia?

As suggested earlier, the Iraqi war is a watershed in the global system. Malaysia has to analyse carefully the way this watershed has come about and where it will lead to. Then Malaysia should adjust its foreign policy accordingly.