Page 2 of 3 Japan has a mission in the
Iraqi desert By Michael Penn
direct bilateral relationship
between Japan and the Baghdad regime was little
more than an afterthought.
The focus on
oil development Just about two weeks after
the GSDF pulled out of Iraq - on August 3, 2006 -
Japanese foreign minister Aso suddenly appeared in
Baghdad on a visit that had not been previously
announced to the public. Officials such as US
President George W Bush and former British prime
minister Tony Blair had already
used
this kind of political theater to demonstrate
their commitment to Iraq, and clearly the Foreign
Ministry of Japan had been taking notes.
Aso met with both Iraqi Prime Minister
Nuri al-Maliki and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Mahmud
Zebari. In the latter meeting, Aso announced:
"Japan intends to further widen the range of
future Japan-Iraqi relations which entered a new
stage following the withdrawal of the SDF and the
inauguration of the new government by, for
example, strengthening political dialogue and
economic relations." Aso's comments may, perhaps,
be regarded in hindsight as the starting point for
the policies that would eventually become known as
the "strategic partnership".
At any rate,
commentary at that particular time began to center
on a somewhat different issue: the possibility of
major Japanese involvement in Iraqi oil
development projects.
Oil was a background
factor in Japanese support for US policy from
before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Although
not necessarily a crucial reason why Tokyo
supported Washington, the idea was certainly
circulating that only the countries that gave
positive support would be rewarded by Washington
with Iraqi oil contracts after the Saddam regime
was toppled. But as the security situation
deteriorated, all of those vague plans about Iraqi
oil development also tended to evaporate.
Still, Japanese oil companies did get
involved. In April 2005 the Japan Petroleum
Exploration Company signed a technical assistance
agreement with the Iraqi Oil Ministry. The Arabian
Oil Company followed suit a couple of months later
in June 2005. These moves were well-understood by
all parties as being preliminary steps toward much
deeper Japanese involvement in the Iraqi oil
industry in the future.
By the summer of
2006, as the GSDF was preparing to depart Samawa,
Japanese government officials indicated that much
of the $3.5 billion earmarked as loans for the
Iraqi government would in fact be targeted on the
oil sector. Explained one official: "The
development of oil and natural gas in energy-rich
Iraq is directly linked to its foreign currency
earnings, which in turn will drive
reconstruction." While it was certainly true that
the Iraqi government was eager to increase its
revenues, that added money could be used for any
number of purposes beyond simply "reconstruction".
By the beginning of August the Yomiuri
Shinbun had actually quoted an official of Japan's
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry who openly
admitted that Japan's aid policies had the
supplementary purpose of assisting private
Japanese companies in receiving future Iraqi oil
development contracts.
In October 2006,
this issue came fully into the open when Iraqi Oil
Minister Husain al-Shahristani visited Japan to
promote bilateral oil links. Shahristani revealed
to reporters that several Japanese oil companies
had expressed interest in developing the Nasiriya
oil field in southern Iraq. This was even billed
by some as a possible substitute for Inpex's loss
of the majority stake in Iran's Azadegan oil field
a month or so earlier.
Japanese government
loans indeed began to give special consideration
to the oil industry and the transportation
infrastructure of Iraq. For example, about $18
million was provided at this time for the
construction of a refinery in Basra. Some months
later, the Inpex oil company was involved in
concrete negotiations over the Qaiyarah Oil Field
in northern Iraq together with its Canadian
business partner, Ivanhoe Energy.
Concerns over Washington's
policy These active moves by the Japanese
government and Japanese oil companies were
particularly striking in light of the growing
pessimism in both the United States and in Japan
about the future prospects of the "New Iraq".
Shortly after the withdrawal of the GSDF
mission in Samawa, major Japanese news services
began to make ex-post facto criticisms about
government censorship of their reporting on
Japanese activities in Iraq. There was a
perceptible change in which the Japanese media
seemed freer to vent harsher verdicts on both US
and Japanese policies in the region.
Of
even greater concern to Japanese policymakers was
the result of the midterm elections in the United
States in which the Democratic Party swept to
victory in both the House of Representatives and,
much more narrowly, in the Senate, on the back of
widespread popular dissatisfaction with the
results of the Iraq War. Then-prime minister Abe,
then being hailed as the architect of a bolder and
more confident Japan, publicly dismissed the
verdict of the US elections, declaring: "There
will be no change in Japan's support for Iraq.
Reconstruction aid for Iraq is being undertaken by
the international community." But behind his bold
words there were in fact growing concerns about
the future of American policy in Iraq and
elsewhere.
While most LDP politicians
managed to keep their private thoughts to
themselves, director general Kyuma Fumio of the
Defense Agency revealed more than he should have.
First, in December 2006, Kyuma made a
clumsy effort to distance Japan from the entire
Iraq War project. Speaking of Koizumi's official
policies in March 2003, Kyuma remarked: "The
Japanese government never announced its support
(for the Iraq invasion). The Prime Minister just
made some statements for the media ... It is not
correct to say that the government offered
'support' - it was more like 'understanding'."
Only one day after saying this, Kyuma backtracked,
claiming that his comments had reflected
"insufficient awareness" on his part.
But
the following month Kyuma revealed his real views
once again. During a press conference he stated
that Bush's decision to invade Iraq was "based on
an assumption that weapons of mass destruction
existed was a mistake". Kyuma once again offered a
retraction shortly thereafter.
All of
Kyuma's comments were being reported globally, and
the damage to the Japanese official line had been
done. This became all the more true when James
Zumwalt, director of the Office of Japanese
Affairs at the State Department, publicly
castigated Kyuma and asserted that his remarks
"could have a negative impact on the bilateral
alliance".
Two weeks later Aso made some
ill-considered public comments on this issue.
Speaking to the local media during a visit to
Kyoto, Aso opined that the Bush administration had
"launched a very immature operation that did not
work so well, and that is why there is trouble".
The emergence of the 'strategic
partnership' After Kyuma and Aso made these
comments there was a significant amount of anxious
speculation in Washington that Tokyo was preparing
to pull support from Iraq and to fundamentally
reconsider its broad support for US policies in
the region.
In fact, less than two months
later in March 2007, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs started talking about Japan's relationship
with Iraq as being a "strategic partnership". The
press release that carried this language for the
first time was issued on March 17, just in advance
of the visit to Tokyo of Iraqi Vice President
Tariq al-Hashimi.
The statement explained
the new framework as follows:
Stability in Iraq is necessary for
the national interests of Japan, which imports
90% of the crude oil that it needs from the
Middle Eastern region. Japan has actively
assisted the reconstruction of Iraq by, for
example, dispatching our Self Defense Forces to
conduct humanitarian assistance, Official
Development Assistance (ODA) amounting to about
US$5 billion, and debt relief measures amounting
to about US$6 billion. By making use of Japan's
assistance up until this point, it is important
for Japan and Iraq, which is a friendly country
toward Japan and a country with the
third-largest oil reserves in the world, to
establish a long-term and strategic partnership
and to build mutually beneficial
relations.
The March visit of the
Iraqi vice president was quickly followed by the
April visit of Maliki. When the Japanese and Iraqi
prime
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