PDI-P Politician on ISIS: Bush Should Have Listened to Megawati
30 March 2015 12:10 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) interim secretary general Hasto Kristiyanto said Megawati Soekarnoputri—the party’s chair—received phone calls from George W. Bush when both were still presidents.
"President Bush called Ibu Mega more than thrice,” Hasto told Tempo at around Hotel Indonesia roundabout on Sunday, March 29, 2015.
According to Hasto, Bush called Megawati to inform her of the 2003 imminent U.S. strike on Iraq, which was then ruled by Saddam Hussein. The U.S. and its allies said they planned to attack Iraq for possessing mass-destruction nuclear weapons, he added.
Hasto said that Mega, however, was against the plans on the grounds that world peace must be preserved. “If [Bush] had heeded Mega’s advise, there wouldn’t have been these [lingering] conflicts [in the Mideast].
Hasto added the emergence of the radical terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) was attributed to injustices in the world. The Allies’ strike on Irak, which was rolled out bereft of U.N. sanction, had stirred up political tensions in the West Asia nation, Hasto said.
“As a peace-loving country, we need to keep ISIS influences from entering Indonesia,” he said.
During the U.S.-led offensive, he added, multiple armed groups were surfacing to protect their territories. He said among the groups was the Mujahiddin Syura Council—led by Abu Umar Al-Baghdadi—which came to existence on August 15, 2005, and later declared itself as the Islamic State of Iraq on October 13, 2006.
At the same time, waves of Syrian protests seeking to oust President Bashar Assad began under foreign aegis, including from the Islamic State of Iraq.
The Syrian rebels and the Islamic State of Iraq later joined forces and established the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) on April 9, 2013. Spearheaded by Abu Bakar Al-Baghdadi, ISIS has now seized large swathes of border towns amounting to approximately 400,000 square kilometers from both conflict-torn countries.
MUHAMMAD MUHYIDDIN