"If the US leaves Iraq under conditions that can be portrayed as defeat, its enemies everywhere will be emboldened, and we will all be at greater risk," Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told a high-level regional security conference here.
"There is no choice but for the US and its coalition partners to stay the course and complete the work in Iraq," he said.
The annual conference hosted by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, includes US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior military and government officials.
Staunch US ally Singapore urged Washington Friday to "complete the work" in Iraq despite serious setbacks and warned against the rise of economic nationalism in the developed world.
"If the US leaves Iraq under conditions that can be portrayed as defeat, its enemies everywhere will be emboldened, and we will all be at greater risk," Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told a high-level regional security conference here.
"There is no choice but for the US and its coalition partners to stay the course and complete the work in Iraq," he said.
The annual conference hosted by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, includes US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior military and government officials.
In his keynote speech, Lee also urged countries to rein in growing economic nationalism, saying it could upset global prosperity and security.
"Economic frictions and obstacles to trade and investment weaken countries' stakes in one another, and their incentive to uphold the global order," Lee said.
"The more we restrict the flow of trade and investments, the more likely that we will have rivalry and tensions, rather than shared interests in one another," he said.
Moves by the US Congress to block the takeover by Dubai's DP World of six American ports earlier this year showed how a commercial transaction could be scuttled by public concern over national security, the Singapore leader said.
"The problem is how to balance these economic and security considerations, and at the same time take into account public sentiments," Lee said.
Lee called on Asian countries to uphold free trade and stay engaged with the major powers, including the United States and China, in order to maintain the region's prosperity.
"Asia's prosperity will always depend on its being part of the global economy, and not a closed trading bloc," Lee said.
US officials earlier said Rumsfeld will remind regional leaders during the three-day Singapore meeting that the Asia-Pacific area remains a strategic priority for Washington despite the turmoil in the Middle East.
Rumsfeld will deliver the message in a speech Saturday.
His visit comes amid growing US concern about China's military buildup and recent moves to form regional groupings that exclude the United States, still the dominant military power in the Pacific despite strains caused by the Iraq war.
Rumsfeld made waves last year at the Shangri-la Dialogue by accusing China of hiding big increases in military spending that he said were threatening to upset the military balance in the region.
