The Washington Post,
BANGKOK, Dec. 8 — Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, strongly criticized U.S. policy toward Iraq on Monday, charging that Washington's “unilateralist” approach was “an utter failure” that threatens the cause of global peace.
Speaking at a regional security conference in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, Foreign Minister Noer Hassan Wirajuda issued his sharpest criticism so far of U.S. policy on Iraq. He warned of a Balkanization of Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines and the prospect of “a new and terrible round of internecine violence.”
Such developments would threaten the entire Middle East at a time when Muslims are already feeling “a keen sense of grievance,” he said.
Indonesia opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which was highly unpopular among the country's vast moderate Muslim majority. But with Southeast Asia widely regarded as the second front in the Bush administration's war on terrorism, Indonesian support for that effort is pivotal.
Wirajuda said that by invading Iraq without allowing U.N. weapons inspectors to complete their work, the United States may have damaged international nonproliferation efforts. “That would make the war in Iraq a debacle to the cause of global security and peace,” he said, according to a copy of his speech.
The U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, Ralph L. Boyce, who attended the conference, called Wirajuda's remarks “thoughtful and provocative.” But he added: “It is a little too early to declare the Iraq situation a failure. We are only a few months into this historic effort.”
