Gavan McCormack: Why Japan Is Following the Bush Administration Line on Iraq
One week before UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's visit to Japan this February, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi declared it crucial for Japan to show the United States what a"trustworthy ally" it was. After all, he commented, if ever Japan were to come under attack, it would be the U.S., not the UN or any other country that would come to its aid. No further elaboration of his reference to a possible attack was needed. All Japanese knew that he was referring to North Korea. When Japan declared support for the US-led war on Iraq in March 2003, and when Japanese forces were sent to southern Iraq to aid in the occupation the following January, it was not the Sunnis or Shiites of Iraq who were in Japanese sights but North Korea, a country on which its national fears and hatred had in recent years been sharply focused.
Given its continuing psychological distance from its continental neighbors, Koizumi's Japan sees no option but to cling to the now sixty year-old American embrace, a stance that only emboldens the U.S. to squeeze harder, further blocking it from reconciliation and cooperation with Asia."I believe President Bush is right and he is a good man," Koizumi told the Diet on November 25, 2003. Because he is one of a handful of world leaders for whom George Bush displays personal warmth, he seems especially vulnerable to"friendly" requests. Although Japan's economy is roughly equal to those of Germany, France, and Britain combined, the prime minister would never risk offending Washington by taking a"French" or"German" stance on major issues. It may even be true to say that nowhere in the world does the Bush administration have a more faithful follower than the Japanese Prime Minister.
After the attacks of September 11th, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage bluntly advised Japan to pull its head out of the sand and make sure the Rising Sun flag was visible in the Afghanistan war, advice Koizumi promptly took to heart. Despite being a country with a pacifist constitution and no prior involvement in any Middle Eastern conflict, Japan sent a substantial part of its Maritime Self Defense Forces (aka: its navy), including an Aegis-class destroyer, to the Indian Ocean to aid and refuel the allied forces.
Then, in March 2003, on the eve of war, Koizumi promised his"unconditional" support for the invasion of Iraq. Pressed to translate that support into"boots on the ground," Koizumi subsequently agreed to supply troops as well. In January 2004, the advance guard of Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) flew off.
For the first time in 60 years, Japan had committed itself, albeit in a subordinate and officially"non-combat" role, to an illegal and aggressive war. Few recent votes have been taken in Japan's Diet under such controversial circumstances. As the Diet convened at the end of January to ratify the dispatching of troops to Iraq, the opposition boycotted the vote en masse, insisting it was unconstitutional, and even several heavyweights from the prime minister's own Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) absented themselves. One former conservative minister took the government to court to have its actions declared unconstitutional, and a senior Japanese ambassador was recalled and sacked for questioning Koizumi's policies. When David Kay, head of the American Iraq Survey Group searching that country for weapons of mass destruction, concluded before a U.S. congressional committee that it was"highly unlikely" any such weapons existed, Koizumi never faltered. For him,"trustworthiness" to Washington seemed to outweigh Japan's constitution, the law, or morality.
The constraint on Japan's possession or use of armed force, the famed Article 9 in the country's postwar constitution, written during the American occupation of the country, is now given short shrift in the West. In Asian capitals, however, it is seen as a key element in the post-war regional security system. The domestic mood of hostility and fear towards North Korea, and the U.S. pressure for"boots on the ground" in Iraq combined to present Koizumi with the perfect opportunity to set aside half a century of constitutional principle and transform the SDF into a regular army.
Although his decision to send the SDF to Iraq was taken in the teeth of strong popular opposition, within a matter of months he was able to release a flood of patriotic sentiment that would overwhelm constitutional qualms and turn public opinion around. Where opposition to any dispatch of troops in early to mid-2003 was running at 70 to 80 per cent, by early 2004 a small majority (53 per cent) was in favor. Koizumi's gamble had paid off, at least in the short run. His task was made that much easier by the way it was reported in the United States and to some extent in Europe as well: Japan was being"realistic,""assuming its global responsibilities," shedding its"hypocritical moralism," behaving as a"true partner" of the U.S. Koizumi found himself basking in domestic and international approval.