By Tom Plate

Is it anti-American to disagree with U.S. policy?

Were this in fact the case, wouldn't half of Congress, the beneficiary of a system that constitutionally protects dissent and criticism, now have to be counted as such?

So when much of the rest of the world has sincere doubts about the wisdom of an offensive against the sovereign state of Iraq, should it be thought anti-American?

To be sure, Iraq is a tricky issue, especially for neighboring countries. They may not like Saddam Hussein (who does?), but they doubt that there is any present danger (at least in the absence of a destabilizing Western offensive).

In fact, we all know that many countries, not just Iraq, have stockpiled biological or chemical weapons — including, of course, the United States and Israel, which pair also happens to have nuclear ones.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad says that if America persists in removing Saddam Hussein by military means, it will only further anger the Muslim world. Many Asians can relate to his view. Associated Press

It would be a cure far worse than the disease of Saddam if the result were a renewed and seemingly permanent geopolitical plague of terrorism, especially against the United States and Israel.

But some of America's closest friends, not wishing to appear disloyal to an oft-brittle "You-are-either-with-us-or-against-us" Bush administration, in Asia and elsewhere, fear to make these points publicly.

Not, however, outspoken Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who is almost always direct — abroad and at home — sometimes to a fault. The problem of Saddam, he says, will prove less daunting than the problem created in the effort to vaporize him. While Washington sees a particular evil (Hitlerian evil, as famously declaimed the first President Bush), much of Asia sees a far larger looming threat.

Explains Mahathir: "If America persists in removing Saddam Hussein by military means, it will only anger the Muslim world."

"The Muslim world is already angry enough for them to produce terrorists who carry out suicide attacks. If the attack on Saddam Hussein is mounted, there will be more willing recruits in the terrorist ranks."

An anti-Muslim crusade may be the farthest thing from Washington's mind, but the "perception is that Muslim countries seem to be the target everywhere," as Mahathir puts it.

The growing perception is of one civilization gunning for another, rich against poor, light against dark.

Hard facts are not always as memorable or enduring as gut images.

Head of a largely Muslim nation of a mere 22 million people for more than two decades, Mahathir knows that in taking on the world's only superpower, he runs a risk.

Yet he also generates a great deal of silent admiration across the region. The truth is, many people in Asia, as elsewhere, are turned off by the arguable arrogance of Washington's gut instinct toward geopolitical moralism, as if only America knows the right thing to do.

A United Arab Emirates columnist, writing in the influential Khaleej Times, put it succinctly recently: "Not only is the United States the greatest and most powerful nation on planet Earth, but it is now also the one country that has appropriated the right to live by its own set of rules, quite apart from the rest of the world. ... American hubris is so dangerous because of the unparalleled power it enjoys."

That power is not viewed as inherently evil as long as it is applied sincerely multinationally — that is to say, in the interest of all (or at least many) nations rather than one.

So here's the paradox: The Bush administration may sincerely believe its topple-Saddam policy is in the world's interest — and indeed, it may be right.

But the widespread perception in Asia and elsewhere is that what drives U.S. policy is not a broad global perspective but America's narrow national interests (and perhaps the president's secret wish to settle an old score for his father), and this administration's exceptionally close relationship with Israel (which has been overtly targeting the Palestinian leadership).

Because the U.S effort to imbue the anti-Saddam offensive with a paternal multinational patina seems insincere, the core policy seems inherently unilateral and self-centered.

Tom Plate, a columnist with The Honolulu Advertiser and the South China Morning Post, is a professor at UCLA. Reach him at tplate@ucla.edu. He also has a spot on the Web.