European Union-Type Asean Possible But Not Now, Says Dr Mahathir

PUTRAJAYA, May 7 (Bernama) -- Asean, the grouping of 10 Southeast Asian nations, may be able to emulate the European Union (EU) but this is unlikely to come true in the near future, former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has predicted.
He said the 10 nations could become closer like the EU but this would happen only over time as there were too many differences among the Asean countries.
"In time, maybe we can introduce a common currency. But this must not be done by doing away with local currencies. The Ringgit can be used domestically while the common currency for trade between the 10 countries. That would be a start. We can also start sharing airspace or introduce a single passport.
"Asean countries can do a lot of things together but they should not be too fast working on this," Dr Mahathir said in his keynote address on "National Sovereignty" at the seventh the Perdana Discourse Series at the Perdana Leadership Foundation, here, Wednesday.
He said the EU, a union of European countries, was now like a nation state of its own with the commitment from all member states.
"They (the Europeans) modelled it after the United States but the US did not come together from different states or countries like the EU. They now speak with one voice despite the differences in culture and religion. But then again, they could come together as their civilisation is based on the Greek civilisation.
"Asean, on the other hand, still has various hurdles. We are competing economies for one. We started off with five founding states and now expanded to 10 where cooperation is minimal but of course, we can find areas of common interest," said Dr Mahathir.
The former prime minister pointed out that it would take a long time for Asean countries to copy the EU style of grouping and "not in my lifetime as I have only a short time left".
He said emulating the EU style would result in the country losing some of its sovereign rights as Malaysia had to share borders, among other things.
"Presently, we are guarding our boundaries but some feel that we should be an internationalist rather than a nationalist. In order for Asean to be like EU, all member states need to reconcile our ambitions and targets," he said.
On another note, Dr Mahathir said some quarters also felt that the country would benefit from submitting to powerful nations but "this will result in the nation losing its freedom".
Small nations, he said, used to sustain their respective independence by having pacts with blocks but the end of the Cold War ensured that the world had only one superpower.
"Now with only one superpower, we thought peace and sovereignty would be sustained. We felt reasonably safe but unfortunately this single superpower does not practise what it preaches. "If we do not follow what is being preached, then we are hammered. We are accused of being undemocratic. Democracy does not result in good governance everywhere. In some places it works, in some places it does not and it is in these places that the government becomes weak," Dr Mahathir said.
He also laid bare his worry over talks that the causeway and second link connecting Malaysia and Singapore were jointly owned by the two nations, when in actual fact both countries owned only their respective half of the causeway and second link.
"If the arguement is used, then Singapore has the right over the Malaysian side of the causeway and vice versa. But this would be a conflict of sovereignty. How can you own the Singapore part of the causeway when you don't own the waters underneath the causeway?"
On another note, Dr Mahathir said military power was useless in the present day as "even if you invade a nation, that does not guarantee you can rule the land".
"I would say that the US is a very weak nation as wars today are very different. It is not the shock-and-awe approach anymore. It is not conquer and conquest. Even if you invade a nation, it does not mean that the people surrender.
"The US found out about this a bit too late. In Iraq, they went in with their high-technology weapons and were able to capture Iraq in a few days...but did they really capture the country?" he questioned.
"In the days that followed after landing in Iraq, the US could not rule Iraq because the people kept fighting back like in Vietnam in the 1970's, where the "powerful invaders had to literally run out".
"I want to state here that if the US goes ahead to invade Iran, then they will suffer a worse fate than in Iraq. You cannot conquer a country from air, eventually you would have to come down and fight on land and this is where the difficulty lies," said Dr Mahathir.
He said the failure of the US to understand the changes in the concept of war had resulted in the superpower going bankrupt because it spent nearly US$3 trillion for the Iraq and Afganistan invasion.

tunku : just imagine if th US$3 trillion used for a good cause , how peaceful this world would be.the only superpower(usa) is ruining the world.