Indonesia’s Prabowo Offers to Negotiate With Iran

By Joseph Rachman

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Southeast Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: Southeast Asia splits over the Iran strikesMalaysia makes an anti-LGBT pushIndonesia convicts oil execs for corruption, and joint Thai-U.S. exercise Cobra Gold kicks off.

The United States and Israel’s surprise strikes on Iran have stunned the world, including Southeast Asia.

As with the United States’ audacious raid on Venezuela, none of the countries in the region has welcomed the development.

Some Southeast Asian leaders are taking a softer line on the Iran strikes, though, despite their greater scope and likely greater repercussions.

The most striking response has come from Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, which has offered to facilitate negotiations.

Unusually, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs even declared, “[T]he President of Indonesia is willing to travel to Tehran to conduct mediation.”

Indonesia also stopped short of condemning the strikes, instead saying it “deeply regrets” the failure of negotiations and calling for restraint. Contrast this to former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s capture, after which Indonesia expressed “grave concern” over U.S. actions.

As with Indonesia’s provision of troops for a Gaza peacekeeping force, the key driver seems likely to be President Prabowo Subianto’s continuing efforts to make a role for himself on the global stage as a peacemaker.

This new offer risks making Prabowo look like a stooge of U.S. President Donald Trump in Indonesians’ eyes. Some are already criticizing his offer as unrealistic.

The region’s two other Muslim-majority states, Malaysia and Brunei, have been much more critical.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has long been a vocal critic of the United States’ Middle East policies and Israel. As an Islamic student activist, he was deeply inspired by the Iranian revolution. Yet Malaysia’s close links to Gulf states mean it has also condemned Iran’s retaliatory strikes against them.

In a statementthe Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it “strongly condemns the attacks against Iran and the subsequent retaliatory attacks against several countries in the region.”

It further called for disputes to be resolved via diplomacy “in full respect of international law.”

Anwar has also spoken out personally against the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “I unreservedly condemn the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. This act places the Middle East on the edge of grave and sustained instability.”

He called the killing of a head of state a “dangerous precedent” that weakened the international order.

However, Anwar also added, “I urge the Iranian authorities to respond with the utmost restraint.”

These sentiments were echoed by Brunei’s foreign ministry, which stated it “strongly condemns” the attacks on Iran that “resulted in the loss of innocent civilian lives and provoked retaliatory strikes” against Gulf countries.

The statement added it was particularly regrettable that the strikes came amid talks hosted by Oman for a new nuclear deal.

Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul declared he was “gravely concerned by the current situation in the Middle East” and “saddened” by violence against civilians. The government’s main focusthough, is the safety of Thai civilians and their potential evacuation.

Singapore has said it “regrets the failure of negotiations” that led to strikes against Iran and its retaliatory strikes and called for a return to negotiations.

Again, the formulation is weaker than Singapore’s response to U.S. actions in Venezuela. This reflects Singapore’s long-standing ties and sympathy with Israel.

Cambodia’s government has expressed “deep concern” and called for maximum restraint to avoid escalation. However, unlike with Venezuela, it did invoke the need to respect international law.

Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has simply declared that the government is monitoring the situation and emphasized that his priority was protecting Filipinos in the region.

The latter point is a major concern given the high number of Filipino workers in the Middle East. One was killed on Feb. 28 by an Iranian strike on Tel Aviv. And unlike with Venezuela, there was no concerned invocation of international law.

The governments of Laos, Myanmar, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam have, at the time of writing, yet to offer comment on the situation.

In terms of concrete impacts on Southeast Asia, the most immediate will be any effect on oil prices.

Thailand has already suspended oil exports over worries about spiking prices. Malaysia has promised to keep prices stable via subsidy—which will be expensive.

There will also be some businesses in Malaysia that have made money covertly shipping Iranian oil to beat U.S. sanctions now holding very urgent meetings.

Malaysia’s anti-LGBT push. Malaysia is continuing to ramp up its anti-LGBT policies. On Feb. 25, the communications minister announced that LGBT dating apps Grindr and Blued had been blocked in the country.

The government is now looking for ways to stop them—and other LGBT-related apps—from appearing on app stores in the country. The deputy minister of religious affairs has also urged people to use the term “deviant culture” instead of LGBT to avoid “promoting” it.

Malaysia has never been a friendly place for sexual minorities. The country’s penal code—which dates back to the era of British colonization—prohibits “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.”

Recent years have seen growing public and political agitation about the issue. In January, a private event, “Glamping with Pride”—organized by an LGBT rights nongovernmental organization—was canceled over public outcry.

The irony is that Anwar has twice been convicted on sodomy charges, in 2000 and 2014. He and his supporters have always denied the charges, calling them politically motivated.

Anwar’s ascension to the top office was also seen by some as a victory for Malaysia’s liberal forces. But with his government politically courting the country’s increasingly religious conservative Malay majority, these hopes have been dashed.

Indonesia cracks down on oil graft. On Feb. 26, Indonesia jailed nine people on corruption charges related to the subsidiaries of national oil company Pertamina.

Accused of causing $17 billion in state losses, the defendants were sentenced to between nine and 15 years.

The most interesting figure to be convicted was Mohammed Kerry Adrianto Riza, the son of Riza Chalid, aka Indonesia’s “gasoline godfather,” also sought by Indonesian prosecutors in the same case.

It is widely believed their business hinged on Chalid’s protection by powerful political contacts he cultivated.

Last year, Indonesia’s leading investigative news outlet, Tempo, accused former President Joko Widodo of having blocked an investigation into Chalid, despite having promised to clean up corruption in Pertamina.

That Chalid, who is on the run, should come under scrutiny now is interesting, given his strong past links to Prabowo. Prabowo has positioned himself as a corruption fighter, though critics have alleged his government has used prosecutions as a political tool.

For some, the pursuit of Chalid is proof of Prabowo’s sincere anti-corruption commitment. Others suspect his fall, if it eventuates, might merely herald a new set of vested interests.

Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Hun Many attends a ceremony to welcome 74 returned cultural artifacts, in Phnom Penh on Feb. 27. AFP via Getty Images

Cambodia has welcomed the return of 74 historic artefacts plundered by British scholar and smuggler Douglas Latchford. Praised as a leading scholar on the art of the ancient Khmer Empire, Latchford also dealt in stolen antiquities. In 2019 he was charged with selling smuggled Cambodian antiquities on the black market by prosecutors in New York but died in 2020 before the case went to trial.

591.2. The length, in feet, of the secondhand aircraft carrier Indonesia is procuring from Italy, apparently mainly for “humanitarian” uses. The ship is being handed over free of charge, but Indonesia will be paying an Italian company to refurbish it and buying helicopters for it—helped by a loan from Italy.

The logic behind the procurement looks soggy. As the world’s largest archipelagic nation Indonesia does have a lot of territorial waters to protect.

But aircraft carriers are for blue-water navies aimed at projecting power globally—something that seems outside Indonesia’s strategic policy or even its capacity.

Some argue an aircraft carrier might help police more remote parts of Indonesia’s waters, in particular the Natuna Sea where China has asserted territorial claims. Even this, though, would rely on a huge amount of supporting equipment, from suitable planes to escorts and tanker ships for refueling.

Like a lot of expensive white-elephant purchases of defense equipment, the real purpose may be prestige. Now the Indonesian military is left sorting out what to do with it—hence the odd suggestion the huge floating weapons platform might be used for disaster relief.

On Feb. 20—two days before elections were held— the body of Laotian dissident Bao Mo Khaen was found dumped by the side of the road. Mark Wright shines a light on this and other murders of Laotian activists in the Diplomat.

Did Jeffrey Epstein hire Philippine gig workers to clean up his image online? The Philippines’ anti-cybercrime institute is investigating, by Sam Beltran in the South China Morning Post.

As Indonesia’s fertility rate hovers just above replacement level, its government pushes young people to get married using durians as an incentive, by Maretha Uli in the Jakarta Post.

Cobra Golda joint military exercise cohosted by Thailand and the United States involving more than 8,000 personnel and 30 nations, kicked off on Feb. 24. It will run until March 6.

Alongside the U.S. and Thailand, full participants in the exercise taking place on Thai soil include Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia.

China, India, and Australia will join selected activities, such as the humanitarian assistance program.

Cobra Gold is one of the largest and longest-running multinational military exercises in Southeast Asia, reflecting an alliance that dates back to 1954.

But while the United States’ other Southeast Asian alliance with the Philippines has remained strong, the relationship with Thailand has drifted. Thai foreign policy today is marked by hedging between the U.S. and China, with some even arguing Thailand leans more toward the latter.

How did it reach this point?

Fundamentally, the geopolitical landscape has changed. In 1954, the U.S.-Thailand alliance was founded on a joint opposition to communism in Asia. It was aimed at containing China and communist movements in Indochina. The end of the Cold War saw the alliance’s relevance decline.

Thailand’s coups in 2006 and 2014 were further blows. While in Cold War days such actions were met with a wink and a nod, the United States’ post-Cold War democracy promotion agenda proved less accommodating.

After the second coup, the U.S. reacted by cutting military aid and curtailing military exercises.

China quickly stepped in to fill the gap. Between 2014 and 2024, it sold substantially more military equipment to Thailand than the United States did. And the number of joint military exercises between the two countries has also increased.

This trend looks likely to continue. Since its return to democracy in 2023, Thailand has continued to hedge between China and the U.S.

And Trump’s haphazard intervention in last year’s border war with Thailand seemed to endear him more to Cambodia than Thailand, with the U.S. now pursuing a rapprochement with the latter.