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3 Japan has a mission in the Iraqi
desert By Michael Penn
ministers met, Abe said: "There is
no change in our policy to actively help with the
reconstruction of Iraq through Official
Development Assistance and activities of the
Self-Defense Forces ... We want to forge a
long-term strategic partnership."
Since
April 2007, mention of the "strategic partnership"
continues to appear in the statements of the
Foreign Ministry - even in the
new
Fukuda Era.
An empty
friendship How are we to account for the
Japan-Iraq "strategic partnership"? Does it
signify a significant shift in policy?
Fundamentally, the "strategic partnership"
does not represent any significant break from the
Japanese policies that have been pursued since the
US and "Coalition of the Willing" invasion of Iraq
in March 2003. It is rather more rhetorical than
substantive. However, it does have a couple of
interesting implications that are worth exploring.
First of all, one key to understanding the
"strategic partnership" is that this language
appeared at precisely the same time as the Bush
administration's military "surge" policy in Iraq.
In the months immediately following the US midterm
elections in November 2006, global attention had
shifted away from the Bush administration toward
both the new Democratic Congress and the
bipartisan Iraq Study Group report. For several
months it appeared that US policy was moving
toward a phased withdrawal from Iraq. That seemed
to be the verdict of the US elections.
However, in the early months of 2007, the
Bush administration managed to regain the
initiative, divide the Democratic opposition, and
put in place its new policy of the "surge". The
Abe administration, the LDP more generally and
even the Japanese Foreign Ministry, all of whom
had closely associated themselves with US
Republican Party foreign policies, welcomed the
renewed vigor of the US military policies in Iraq.
In this sense, we are probably justified
in seeing the "strategic partnership" as being
part of a Japanese diplomatic "surge" to
complement the US military "surge" in Iraq.
The second major implication of the
"strategic partnership" involves its psychological
ramifications for Japanese policymakers. It was
fear over the US-Japan security alliance,
especially in light of the priority of winning US
support on Japan's pressuring of North Korea over
resolution of the 1980s kidnappings, that
convinced most Japanese leaders that they had "no
choice" but to fully back the US invasion in March
2003.
When Iraqi resistance to the
occupation increased at the end of 2003 and into
2004, once again Japanese policymakers found
themselves without credible foreign policy tools
that could shape the outcome. Even the GSDF
mission in Samawa was largely preoccupied with
hiding in their fortress and avoiding any
casualties that might embarrass the government in
the face of disapproving Japanese public opinion.
From Tokyo's perspective, Japan had nothing to do
with the creation of the Iraqi tragedy, yet as a
faithful US ally it had to bear the consequences.
In this sense, the"strategic partnership"
provides Japanese policymakers with a useful
illusion that they have some degree of control
over the situation. The framework saves the Iraq
tragedy from becoming just an embarrassment that
they have to endure as part of their alliance
dues.
According to this framework, Japan
is not a victim but rather a clever entrepreneur.
It is laying the groundwork for a future in which
Iraq is at peace, oil supplies and fat development
contracts are ensured, and Baghdad is grateful for
the proven friendship of its Japanese partners.
This is a Japan that boldly acts rather than
simply waits to be acted on.
The above two
factors probably account for the
Japan-Iraq"strategic partnership" framework.
However, the new diplomatic framework is just
barely plausible, and contains several gaping
deficiencies.
One problem is that the
Japanese public itself is utterly unconvinced.
From the point of view of most ordinary citizens,
Iraq is a land of murder and mayhem that they
simply don't want to touch. The strong preference
of most Japanese would be to leave Iraq
altogether. They perceive having no genuine stake
in the Iraqi domestic outcome. It is only in
deference to the sensitivities of their crucial
American allies that most Japanese exercise
forbearance over their government's policies. More
liberal Japanese commentators routinely offer
withering criticisms of these official policies,
and the reality is that the "strategic
partnership" framework gets almost no traction
from either the left or center of the Japanese
political field.
Additionally, although
conservative Japanese opinion still backs
government policies to the hilt, even the right
has no genuine commitment to the "strategic
partnership" with Iraq. This can be usefully
demonstrated by an incident that occurred in June
2007. Japanese conservatives were at that time
outraged by the efforts to pass a symbolic
resolution in the US House of Representatives
criticizing Japanese treatment of "Comfort Women"
during the Pacific War. Kato Ryozo, the Japanese
ambassador in Washington, reportedly sent a
private letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and
four other key Congressional leaders warning that
if the resolution was passed Tokyo might retaliate
by reducing their level of cooperation with US
policy in Iraq. This reckless move by the Japanese
ambassador and the conservatives behind him
inadvertently exposed, among other things, the
essentially empty nature of the "strategic
partnership". This leads to the following,
all-important point: at no time in the entire
post-2003 period (or indeed in the post-1990
period) has Japanese policy been driven even
remotely by its direct bilateral relationship with
Iraq. Japan's Iraq policy has been hostage to
alliance policy. Japanese policymakers understand
that the United States is highly sensitive to any
and all issues touching Iraq. Therefore, Japanese
policies toward Iraq have been and continue to be
framed with eyes firmly planted on Washington, not
Baghdad.
From this perspective, the real
Japanese strategic partnership is not with the
Iraqi government, but rather with the US
government that has installed the regime and
remains its key patron. If some major dispute
should arise between the government in Washington
and the government in Baghdad, no one is in any
doubt which side the Japanese government will take
- "strategic partnership" or no.
But
perhaps the most fundamental weakness of Japan's
"strategic partnership" policy is that it takes no
serious cognizance of what is happening inside
Iraq. The Japanese framework is fully premised on
an American victory in which the current Iraqi
leadership remains in place.
It has been
hinted since at least the autumn of 2006 that many
officials of the Foreign Ministry were privately
pessimistic about Iraq and expecting that the
project would ultimately fail. Like the Bush
administration, however, the public face remains
hopeful. The "strategic partnership" is one facet
of this policy of wishful thinking.
What
is the real Japanese government analysis for the
future of Iraq? Will it hold together under the
current pro-American regime? Will it soon turn
radical and anti-American? Will it fragment into
two or three mutually hostile parts? Will it
fragment into a thousand angry parts like Lebanon
writ large?
The official view - reflected
in part in the notion of the "strategic
partnership" - is that it is best not to
articulate the alliance thought-crime that US
policy in Iraq might actually fail. In public,
Japanese policymakers declare their reinvigorated
commitment to the New Iraq. In private, they are
much more skeptical.
But the evidence to
date is that they refuse to prepare for
alternatives.
Michael Penn is
executive director of the Shingetsu Institute for
the Study of Japanese-Islamic Relations and wrote
this article for Japan Focus.
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