Barack Obama's inviting Najib Abdul Razak to attend the recent Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC reminded me of former US president Lyndon Johnson's famous political dictum: "I never trust a man unless I've got his pecker in my pocket"; and of Chuck Colson's expansion of this thought to "If you've got them by the b...., their hearts and minds will follow".

NONE Certainly Najib's (on the left) heart and mind seemed to be precisely where Obama wanted them to be, as just a week earlier his BN government had rushed through Parliament a Strategic Trade Bill clearly designed to appease US concerns over Malaysia's long-suspected involvement in the illegal traffic of nuclear technology to rogue states like Libya and Iran.

As some of us and of course government agencies in the US recall, in 2003, nuclear centrifuge parts bound for Libya were intercepted in a shipment by Scomi Precision Engineering, a subsidiary of Scomi Group, an oil-and-gas equipment supplier whose leading stakeholder was Kaspadu, an investment company owned by Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's son, Kamaluddin.

Then there was the case of Pakistani citizen Jilani Humayun who allegedly shipped parts for F-14 fighters and Chinook helicopters via Malaysia to Iran, after which the US imposed sanctions on 14 individuals, government agencies and companies, two of which, Challenger Corp and Target Airfreight, were Malaysian.

There have also been persistent if un-investigated and thus unproven allegations that, like the still-unindicted management of the Australian Wheat Board, Abdullah and/or some of his relatives were implicated in the notorious Iraq oil-for-food scandal.

And then there are unanswered questions like how fighter-jet engines can go missing from Malaysian military bases, why commissions on submarine purchases seem to be so high, and who in Malaysia has access to C4 explosive.

With that sort of history to discuss in his heart-to-heart with Obama, it seems to me that Najib had little choice but to comply with the US position, as he did according to the White House release that followed with the statement that "the global community should send a ‘clear signal' to Iran over its controversial nuclear programme".

Considering the BN government's customary stance of outrage against what it deems to be Western bullying if not persecution of its fellow Islamic and Muslim-majority regimes around the world, this was an amazing about-face on Najib's part.

But then, in his desperation to ensure his own and BN's survival he's been making some decidedly conflicted moves lately; not the least of them being the hiring of the Israeli-owned public relations and lobbying outfit Apco Worldwide, to prop up the credibility of his government, which, like Iran, refuses to recognise the existence of Israel.

Media spin

As much a victim as he is of circumstances of his own and BN's making, however, and as much a puppet of the US - the world superpower and Malaysia's largest trading partner - Najib still has Malaysia's ‘mainstream' media in his pocket.

And they had a ball spinning his participation in the Nuclear Security Summit as some kind of coup for his international clout and credibility.

Even before the event, much was made of a picture of Malaysia's Ambassador Jamaluddin Jardis displaying a Washington newspaper's full-page story on Najib's impending visit.

But as Lim Kit Siang and others have since noted, the ‘story' was actually a paid advertorial, and the newspaper was not the illustrious Washington Post with its 600,000-plus circulation, but the 100,000-circulation Washington Times , which is reputedly owned by the religious cult, the Moonies.

Meanwhile, an equally dubious Malaysian newspaper, the New Straits Times , was hard at work attempting to hype the significance of Najib's scheduled private meeting with Obama by quoting a ‘diplomat' as enthusing: "It does not matter that the meeting is brief. The fact that the president has expressed intent and interest in meeting the prime minister is great news. It has created excitement and buzz."

NONE Then, to create the impression that Najib would be leading the discussion, the NST quoted Information, Communications and Culture Minister Rais Yatim (right) as forecasting that his boss would be "discussing with Obama Malaysia's evolving role in the Muslim world (and) issues relating to new Malaysian laws recently passed in Parliament on the conduct of strategic international business as well as matters on Asean regional security".

After the event, in a story headed ‘Malaysia moots UN convention on nuclear security', blatantly BN-biased national ‘news' agency Bernama predictably portrayed Najib as some kind of leading world statesman.

‘Stepping up its role as a responsible global citizen', it boldly claimed, ‘Malaysia on Tuesday pledged its support for a nuclear weapon free world and proposed the establishment of a United Nations convention on nuclear security'.

‘Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak told a gathering from 47 countries, including host United States...that in addressing the threat of nuclear terrorism, the underlying causes of terrorism too must be looked at. In this regard, we believe that moving the Middle East peace process forward and managing the failed states are also important.'

There was lots more in this vein, but you get the picture: Najib should be seen as strutting a significant figure on the world stage rather than what he was actually doing, playing the dummy to Obama's ventriloquist.

Malaysia's MCA-owned Star portrayed the PM-President meeting an altogether different light from Bernama and the NST, however, claiming that ‘Obama, who raised the topic, wanted to know more' about Najib's New Economic Model.

Why the leader of the free world would shift his focus from matters nuclear to Najib's new so-called economic ‘model' is totally unclear. As, of course, is why we should take the word of Star that this actually happened. But at least it brought the focus back from the lofty and mysterious realms of foreign affairs to a topic that Najib and BN understand: money.

And the fact that Najib and his Umnoputra colleagues and cronies couldn't give a fig for Obama or anyone else who likes to imagine he has them in his geopolitical pocket, as long as doesn't try and stop them from running Malaysia as corruptly and unjustly as ever, and keeping on making themselves a packet.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he mentors creative writing groups. Soon to be published in Kuala Lumpur is a third book of his columns for Malaysiakini, following earlier collections ‘Mad about Malaysia', ‘Even Madder about Malaysia' and ‘Missing Malaysia'.