Hail Obama!-Malaysia's New Foreign Policy

Recently, Malaysia has turn from a openly neutral country in its foreign policy to an openly Pro-Washington. What Bush has failed to do was achieved brilliantly by Obama's "Soft-Diplomacy".

The one-year old administration of Najib has laid out strong foundation in its domestic policy such as forming labs through the Government Transformation Programme to solve the never ending problems of goverment delivery system as well as wooing the disillusioned voters through the "1Malaysia" concept. It has stop short in introducing Goods and Services Tax (GST)this year lest Barisan Nasional would like to lose the next general election.

Based on the "People first, Performance Now" dogma, a recent poll by the Merdeka Foundation has shown that the ra'yat were responding favourably towards Najib and based on this "good-factor", the next GE will probably going to be held ASAP, i.e. 2011. And based on his performance on the domestic front, I am openly supporting Barisan Nasional in the next GE. The mood is there and BN will win big (I mean better than 2008).

However, an issue that might changed my mind whether to vote Barisan or Pakatan would be about his foreign policy. Malaysia's "default" foreign policy since Mahathir is for Malaysia to be neutral at all cost. In other words, Malaysia should never ever openly pro-US.

But the recent news report of Petronas cutting gas supplies to Iran has suggest otherwise. Najib has confirmed this and coupled with his recent meeting with Obama in Washington on Iran nuclear issue etc, has made Najib's credibility to champion the rights of Islamic countries being QUESTIONABLE.

Najib must clarify and discuss this issue openly (if possible go live on TV) because Malaysians are personally proud to be neutral on our foreign policy and our neutrality has made Malaysia a respectable country. And currently, his ministers have kept mummed on this issue altogether.

At the time of the writing, Najib had responded "glibly" on Malaysia's sudden foreign policy u-turn on Iran as reported in the Staronline, April 18 2010:

"The Prime Minister said Petronas was involved in a spot sale to Iran in mid-March through a third-party deal but there had been no requests since.

The transaction, he added, was a commercial deal and it was up to the parties involved to decide on the supply if there were further requests for spot sales."

If Malaysia has turned its back on Iran, it would be his worst political error. I predict the Malay voters will be the most agitated and banking on his "1Malaysia", GTP or whatever of his domestic policies would not be of any help.

Never in my life history has foreign policy was made such an issue during the GE, and it would be played to the greatest extent by Anwar and his colleagues in the running towards the next GE in 2011 (?).

"Hail Obama!" and "Salam Satu Malaysia!!!"