Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is always at pains to portray himself as an independent leader speaking out against the West, in much the same style he has used in attacking the current Abdullah Ahamd Badawi administration. Malaysians have come to admire this antagonistic style, but following your article Report confirms Malaysian embassy paid RM4.4 mil, it's time to call a spade a spade.

This confrontational style of Mahathir has made us extremely unpopular in a time of global integration. Bush obviously didn't want to see Mahathir in his capacity as prime minister of Malaysia. The only way Mahathir was going to meet Bush was if he paid. Let's face it, you can't shoot from the hip without thinking, and do it over and over again and expect the people at the receiving end to be positive and responsive towards you.

Mahathir conducted foreign affairs in a disastrous way, alienating many countries which Malaysia needed to constructively engage for trade, security and a number of other crucial factors relating to national interests. Nevertheless and in the process, he impressed us all as the one brave enough to face the West. But I think Malaysians can see his particular firebrand diplomacy for what it was; immature rants of an ill-informed leader sacrificing his country's hard built diplomatic relations for the sake of his ego.

The only ones who still seem impressed are the likes of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader who recently presented Mahathir with a human rights award, and Mahathir's old chum Robert Mugabe whom he meets annually at Malaysia's wasteful Langkawi International Dialogue, an event which is a hangover from Mahathir's days.

Returning to the question of the RM4.4 million paid, I think Mahathir has some questions to answer and in the new spirit of transparency gripping the country, he should come clean. What is clear is that Mahathir ordered payments to the Alexander Strategy Group linked to Jack Abramoff.

This group has explicit and strong association with the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation. It must be noted that this foundation among other things, robustly lobbies for the US to drive economic liberalisation including that relating to the capital account in developing countries (a situation which led to the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997/98) and also explicitly supports Bush's various existing wars as well as his potential ones.

So, on the one hand Mahathir decries war and on the other, he associates himself and Malaysia to groups like the Heritage Foundation. It is interesting to note that the chairman of The Heritage Foundation, Ed Feulner, was made a member of the MSC International Advisory Council during Mahathir's administration. The rumour mill has it that Mahathir's runners for Abramoff and Feulner in Washington were none other than former deputy home affairs minister Megat Junid Megat Ayub and current cabinet minister, Jamaludin Jarjis.

If Wisma Putra did not arrange the meetings between Bush and Mahathir and hence had no background or rather, were not privy to the agenda of the meeting or even the attendees, then who was briefing Mahathir before the meetings? It would be a truly shocking revelation were it to surface that Mahathir, prior to his meetings in the White House, was advised on foreign affairs by Americans.

What's worse this was by corrupt and agenda-driven Americans like Feulner and Abramoff as well as former agents of the CIA including Ken Scheffer (the Heritage Foundation's Asian specialist). Wisma Putra should come clean and inform the public whether or not they had any role in Mahathir's meetings with the lobbyists, and then more importantly, with President Bush.

If it were true that the lobbyists had blocked off Wisma Putra from Mahathir's meeting with Bush, then Mahathir's self-styled role of being the champion of developing countries is merely a superficial cloak that he had worn from time to time.

Our current PM has also seen Bush. Did he similarly have to pay millions or was it because he more constructively conducted foreign affairs and in the process won respect the world over for his progressive Islam and his strong yet conciliatory stance. The hearings of the Senate only point to payments made to the disgraced Abramoff as occurring only under Mahathir.

If all this were true, then Mahathir is guilty of selling out to see Bush, a situation he would not be in if he conducted himself more constructively in international circles. Like the petulant schoolboy who is punished, the Bush administration dismissed all Mahathir's requests to meet the president given Mahathir's irresponsible, scathing and even racist remarks.

Having read so many letters calling for patience in dealing with Mahathir given his contributions to the country, I must ask what really is his legacy? We can all see now that one claimed major plank of his legacy ie, that as outspoken spokesperson of developing countries was just a smokescreen covering all the underhanded dealings Mahathir initiated with dubious, even criminal lobbyists, in the US and perhaps countless other countries around the world. Whither Mahathir's legacy?