(CNSNews.com) – A month after a top Malaysian government minister stirred debate on the need for a joint Islamic military force, the country’s foreign minister has shot down the idea “for the moment,” saying there were too many differences between Islamic states.
“Raising a military force would highly complicated, due to differing issues that exist among Arab countries,” Foreign Minister Rais Yatim said in parliament on Thursday.
“The lack of unity even among the Arab League members can make it difficult to turn the idea of an OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference] military force into reality.”
Rais said the OIC had more pressing issues to prioritize, such as raising the economic standards of its members so they would not have to depend on major world powers.
“Malaysia emphasizes … matters that concern economic prosperity and solidarity among the OIC member countries,” he said. “As such, any policy pertaining to military matters is something that is not encouraged by Malaysia and the OIC member countries for the moment.”
The idea of an OIC “peacekeeping force” was raised early last month by one of Rais’ cabinet colleagues, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who cited Israel’s military operation targeting Hamas in the Gaza Strip and said the time was ripe for the OIC to cooperate in that way.
“We need to do more on a united front,” Zahid, minister in the prime minister’s department in charge of Islamic matters, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur. “Not all OIC nations would be favorable to this idea but if we have the majority, then why not?”
Zahid said he had been approached on the issue by Islamic non-governmental organizations which felt the United Nations was unable to protect Muslims.
“This is an idea which could be explored. It must first be accepted by the heads of OIC states. There is an urgent need for the OIC to convene a special summit for this purpose,” he said, pledging to take up the matter in cabinet.
Malaysia is a leading member of the 57-member OIC, providing its first secretary-general and frequently hosting meetings in recent years. Members of the bloc are mostly majority Muslim countries scattered across the globe, including the 22 members of the Arab League.
A number of individual Islamic states, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Jordan and Turkey, have a long history of peacekeeping under U.N. mandate.
Since the OIC was established in 1969 to focus on the issue of “liberating” Jerusalem for Islam, the idea of a joint military or peacekeeping force has come up periodically – usually at times of conflict or crisis.
The bloc has long drawn criticism from within its ranks for an inability to agree on issues or translate decisions into action, but in 2005 it adopted a 10-year program of action aimed at strengthening its coordination and effectiveness in international affairs.
Among other things, the program called for a stronger OIC role in “peacekeeping … in OIC member states as well as in conflict situations involving Muslim communities.”
The drawn-out conflict in Iraq brought the matter to the fore on several occasions.
In 2004 Saudi Arabia was reported to be gathering the views of OIC member states on the feasibility of forming an Islamic peacekeeping force for Iraq, but received mixed responses.
A senior Pakistani lawmaker, Mushahid Hussain Sayed, later raised the idea again, saying the deployment of an Islamic force in Iraq could pave the way for a dignified withdrawal by U.S. troops.
Mushahid, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, proposed the involvement of Islamic countries with no direct stake in the Iraq situation, including Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh.
In 2007, OIC secretary-general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu declared that support was growing for an Islamic peacekeeping force.
"I think there is a demand, increasing interest, and I think it is in the best interest of the ummah [Islamic nation] to have peacekeeping forces under the OIC banner," he said in Kuala Lumpur, where he was attending a meeting of lawmakers from OIC states.
Leading Pakistani political analyst Shireen Mazari, in a commentary following up Ihsanoglu’s proposal, said the OIC was making an effort “to awaken itself from its decades of stupor.”
“In terms of funds and capabilities, despite widespread views to the contrary, the OIC is well-equipped with both,” she said. “What has so far been lacking is the political will to move collectively by overcoming misperceptions and conflicts within the collectivity.”
Some experts have cautioned that deploying exclusively Muslim troops in conflict situations involving Muslims could be risky.
As a U.S.-led coalition was toppling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan following 9/11, the then Pakistan military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf argued in favor of an peacekeeping force drawn only from OIC countries.
At the time, K.P.S. Gill, president of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, pointed out that Islamic countries themselves had implicitly or explicitly kept the Taliban in power up until then.
“The overwhelming and extended presence of foreign ‘Muslim troops’ in a peacekeeping force may well result in their Talibanization,” Gill warned. “Not having suffered under the rule of the Taliban, they may still look upon this disgraced menagerie as defenders of Islam.”