In Malaysia, the debate o­n peace and war o­n Iraq has largely focused o­n issues of whether the US, Britain and Australia and their allies are morally or politically right to do what they propose against the Saddam Hussein regime. While this cannot be said to be wrong, it is o­nly o­ne of the several dimensions of the total picture.

One other equally, if not more, critical dimension that has been downplayed in official commentaries and editorials in Malaysia is the security concerns of Iraq's neighbours and their alignments with the Anglo-American forces to contain, deter, confront and possibly roll back their common or shared threat.

Without the strategic, defence and security co-operation offered publicly or secretly by Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirate (UAE), Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, it is operationally impossible for any positionings and movements of the Anglo-American military personnels and materials in the war preparation. To state this empirical reality is not anti-war or pro-war but o­nly analytical.

Peninsula Shield

Kuwait is estimated to have about 140,000 various branches of the US armed forces and some 26,000 UK ground troops, centred around Camp Doha, Camp Arifjan, Ali Al Salem Air Base and Al Jabir Air Base. As the principal southern front of the possible allied land and air invasion against Baghdad, Kuwait also hosts equipment and materials in support of personnel.

According to a March 5 report in the New York Times , 1,000 Saudi Arabian troops had arrived in Kuwait to join another 8,000 armed forces of Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Oman to provide protective defence for Kuwait under a collective defence scheme called 'Peninsula Shield'. The joint forces of the Gulf states are to be commanded by the Kuwaiti Army.

The Czech Republic, an European ally of the the US and Britain, has also assigned specialist troops to assist the civil defence of Kuwait against any possible nuclear, biological and chemical attacks launched by Saddam. The lastest report of the UN arms inspectors still opines that there may still be a significant amount of anthrax and other biological and chemical weapons and that their means of delivery are "unaccounted for".

Seen in the geographical context of regional security in the Gulf, Kuwait constitutes the 'forward defence' position for Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Oman.

Contextualised in Southeast Asian geopolitics, Kuwait is like Thailand in the aftermath of the Vitnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia in 1979. Both are frontline or buffer zones for other states in their rear vis-a-vis an aggressive state in the front of the buffer state.

Sharing a 240km land border with Iraq, Kuwait was suddenly invaded by Saddam's troops o­n Aug 2, 1990, and it was occupied until Feb 2, 1991 when the US-led coalition forces defeated the Iraqis in Operation Desert Storm.

During the last phase of the first Gulf War, Saddam also "ordered oil pipelines leading to terminals in the Gulf to be opened, flooding the Persian Gulf with oil", and "ordered several oil wells in Kuwait to be set o­n fire".

As Patrick Brogan writes in World Conflicts - Why and Where They are Happening : "(I)n preparation for the final apocalypse, he ordered all Kuwait's oil installations to be mined and preparations to be made to set every oil well in the emitrate (Kuwait) ablaze." Moreover, Iraq fired Scud missiles at Saudi Arabia and Israel during the last war.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard recalls that Iraq o­nce fired missiles at Bahrain and Qatar, according to a Feb 10 report in the International Herald Tribute .

Apprehension in region

It is therefore not difficult to understand the natural fear, apprehension and sense of vulnerability of Iraq's neighbours in the Gulf and Middle Eastern regions. The fact that real concerns for human, national and regional security among the Gulf states prevail over any extra-regional plea for 'unity' or 'solidarity' with the Saddam regime based o­n religion, culture, language or ideology is o­nly natural.

It is with these security concerns in mind that Bahrain hosts the US 5th Fleet as well as the US Special Operations Command Central in its Manama Naval Base and Shaikh Isa Air Base. It also hosts about 4,500 US miitary personnel as well as some British military advisers. The Washington Post calls Bahrain the "nerve centre of for all US warships in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea".

Similarly, Qatar hosts the Forward Command Center Headquarters of the US Central Command (Centcom) which co-ordinates all US forces in the region. Centcom is the US military command center for its forces in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa.

In Qatar, there are about 4,500 US and 300 UK military personnel stationed in Camp Al Sayliyah and Al Udeid Air Base. Its neighbour, UAE, has about 500 US military personnel, mostly from the US Air Force stationed in Al Dhafra Air Base and Jebel Ali (a portion of the City of Dubai) and UAE is a logistical centre of the US Navy.

Although the Sultanate of Oman o­nly host about 3,000 US military personnel and a small group of British Army advisers, it positions itself as the major transit point for Anglo-American movements of troops and war materials between the Gulf of Oman, Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and Red Sea. It served this role in Operation Enduring Freedom in late 2001.

Two modern and sophisticated international airports (Seeb and Fujairah) and three heavy-duty air bases (Masnaah, Masirah and Thumrait) are o­n standby mode for any military operations, including serving as bases for bombers.

Oman has o­ne of the best trained and most modern armed forces in the Gulf region. A graduate of the top British military college at Sandhurst, Sultan Qaboos is the Supreme Commander of the Royal Armed Forces (formerly designated as Sultan's Armed Forces).

Defence arrangements

On the western landmass of the Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia now hosts about 6,600 US Air Force personnel in Prince Sultan Air Base and Eskan Village. Two Patriot anti-missile batteries and some British warplanes are also based there for defensive and offensive purposes.

According to a March 7 report in the Guardian , "hundreds of American troops have taken control of a civilian airport in Saudi Arabia, close to the border with Iraq", raising "the prospect of a surprise US land attack o­n Baghdad across the desert from the southwest". Citing eyewitnesses, the report has, however, not been officially confirmed.

In the 1991 Gulf War, Saudi Arabia was hit by missiles fired from Iraq. o­n Feb 28 that year, writes Brogan, an Iraqi missile hit a barrack at the Daharan Air Base, killing 28 Americans. Saudi Arabia was an important member of the 1991 Gulf War Coalition and its armed forces actively participiated in the liberation of Kuwait.

Saudi Arabia is believed to have attempted to persuade Saddam to give up power and go into exile in order to avert war. The attempt had been repeatedly supported or endorsed, among other, by the US, Britain, Australia, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar. However, Saddam and his regime have also repeatedly rejected the call.

Jordan shares a 181km land border with Iraq o­n its western flank. Although Jordan did not join the 1991 Gulf War coalition, it was threatened by the Saddam all the same because Jordan has been maintaining "long-standing and regular" defence co-operation with the US and Britain, albeit with a low profile.

For example, a joint exercise between the Royal Jordanian Air Force and Britain's Royal Air Force was conducted for 12 days in mid-January.

Although there is a rather strong anti-war and anti-American sentiment o­n the ground in Jordan and the Jordanian government has repeatedly and publicly expressed the desire to avert war, a Feb 26 report in the International Herald Tribute suggests that "several hundred US troops" have been stationed in Jordan to operate the Patriot anti-missile system and conduct search-and-rescue missions, in the event of war breaking out.

According to the report which quotes Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb and Pentagon officials, US special operations forces have also been allowed to be based in Jordanian regions bordering Iraq.

There is also speculation that Jordan may have secretly granted US, Britain and their European allies the right to overfly its airspace for the speedy transportation of airborne troops and special operations forces from aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean Sea to northern Iraq.

Kurdish question

Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and a traditional US ally, faces the same dilemma as Jordan. Confronting by a strong anti-war sentiment o­n the ground, its politico-security establishment seems to have adopted the Jordanian approach in pacifying the anti-war crowd publicly but secretly making concrete arrangements to assist the war effort by not disallowing US, Britain and their European allies to discreetly use its airspace and other strategic facilities such as the Incirlik Air Base.

Although the Turkish parliament has rejected the proposal for about 62,000 US troops to publicly use its territory for a possible northern-front invasion of Iraq, the discreet use of the Jordanian airspace and even land bases by the Allied forces is said to be still possible, and critical to the shortening of the war and the solution of the Kurdish question.

The Kurdish minority in southern Turkey and northern Iraq are Muslims of the Sunni denomination. Thousands of them were massacred by Saddam's army after the 1991 Gulf War.

In any event, the Turkish military has publicly spoken up in favour of open co-operation with the US in allowing the 62,000 troops to use its territory for the possible northern-front invasion of Iraq. The parliamentary proposal is believed to be tabled again soon.

Seemingly anti-war and anti-American, Syria would mostly likely remain militarily and effectively, if not rhetorically, neutral. Syria shares its borders with Iraq (605km), Israel (76km), Jordan (375km), Lebanon (375km) and Turkey (822km).

Last but not least, Iran is o­n the eastern front of Iraq. While publicly not in favour of war and understandably anti-US, Iran was a victim of Saddam's aggression from 1980-1988. Moreover, Iran has hosted Iraqi Shi'ites who have been systematically persecuted by Saddam.

Iran has also reportedly financed,trained and equipped Iraqi Shi'ites, and to insert them back into southern Iraq to fight Saddam, according to a March 7 report in the Washington Post .

After Saddam was defeated in the 1991 Gulf War, thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites were massacred by Saddam's army after their insurrection against Baghdad failed.

Moral calculus

This politico-security analysis suggests that:

1) The tensions and conflicts are multi-sourced and multi-factorial and NOT a simple or black-and-white civilisational clash between 'Christian US' and 'Islamic Iraq', or between 'imperialism' and 'Third World';

2) Given the historical relations and strategic contexts, the security concerns of the states in the Gulf and Middle Eastern vis-a-via the Saddam Hussein regime in Baghdad are natural, understandable, justifiable and genuine;

3) Given the regime behaviour of the Saddam Hussein and the ruling elite in Baghdad, Iraq's neighbours cannot realistically afford to opt for absolute pacifism, or de-alignment from the Anglo-American and European powers and forces without other viable options;

4) Security of modern nations and states are defined by national, regional and international history, geography, and the intentions (including ambitions and behaviours) and capabilities of neighbouring nations and states, not timely and spaceless theology, philosophy or ideology;

5) The 12-year relative peace and security in the Gulf and Middle Eastern regions has evidently been guaranteed by the readiness and willingness of the regional states and their Anglo-American as well as European allies to go to war against the aggressor; and the readiness (or preparedness) and willingness need economic or financial resources to sustain;

6) As there is certainly a price (including human lives) to be paid for war, there is also cost (also including human lives) for ignoring or appeasing confirmed tyrants and/or aggressors; it follows that, while peace is ideally most desirable, the real moral calculus of peace and war is not absolute, but relative in terms of time and space.

JAMES WONG WING o­n is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM). Wong is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily (now Sin Chew Daily). He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew, he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.