The US needs to focus extra on Indonesia, which is ASEAN’s lead member, where Obama once lived (ages 6-10), and where he paid a triumphant visit in 2010. This country’s population of about 245 million makes it the fourth largest on the face of the earth, and since about 90 percent of these Indonesians are Muslim, it is the country with the largest Islamic population anywhere. We need to keep repeating that last fact. Not too long ago, Jakarta was a main crossroad in US’ anti communist crusade in Asia but when the Iron Curtain fell, so, generally, did Washington’s interest in this predominantly Muslim country.
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