Newsletter No. 868
Editorial-Opinion
January 5, 2008

 

The following opinion piece has been written by Shirzad Azad (Shingetsu Member No. 183). Azad is based at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. Various versions of this piece have appeared at several internet news sites in the past ten days or so.

THE AMERICAN NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE ON IRAN AND JAPANESE FOREIGN POLICY
By Shirzad Azad

Among major US allies, Japan and the French government of President Nicolas Sarkozy were the biggest casualties of the recently-released National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report on the Iranian nuclear issue. France, under President Sarkozy, took an aggressive approach to Iran's nuclear program, while at the same time, Sarkozy's more prudent counterparts in Germany and Britain, Chancellor Merkel and Prime Minister Brown, adopted a more ambiguous policy over the nuclear issue.

The NIE’s publication must have taught newcomer Sarkozy the lesson that he should not forget the manner of his more-experienced predecessor Jacques Chirac regarding sensitive international controversies.

But Japan, under Prime Ministers Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe, and lately under Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, has not changed its policy toward the Iranian nuclear issue. Because of the paramount importance the Japanese government puts on its alliance and special relationship with the United States, Japan has capitalized both economically and politically on tough US policy over Iran's nuclear program. However, it was very surprised when it then found that the United States has essentially laughed off the nuclear standoff, now saying it was simply a mistaken estimation by the otherwise highly sophisticated US intelligence community.

Compared to other Asian countries -- from China to India to South Korea and city-state Singapore -- Japan's strategy on the issue of Iran's nuclear program was the one nearest to US policy in recent years. This is because those other oil-thirsty Asian nations now prefer to adopt a China-like foreign policy toward Iran (though the incoming conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak, whom the Koreans just elected for his mouth-watering economic promises, may bring his country closer to Tokyo on important international problems).

What really distinguishes Japan's new Persian Gulf policy from other Asian countries is that Japan has already practiced these policies, distinct from these other Asian toddlers, in the Middle East for nearly two decades; roughly from the first Oil Shock of 1973.

Taking the NIE into consideration, Japan has so far been reluctant to take any official position about the new thinking in the US over Iran's nuclear issue. As an unofficial platform for the Japanese government the influential Daily Yomiuri newspaper has yet to run any editorial on the NIE. Japan is simply perplexed by the suspicious NIE report, though it would support a peaceful settlement of the Iranian nuclear problem.

After all, there may be some kind of reciprocal agreement behind the scenes between the main actors in the Iran nuclear issue. Influential European countries might have offered something in this case, and probably Russia and China as well. This seems clear when we take into account US President George W. Bush's apparent encouragement of the transfer of nuclear fuel to Iran by Russia. China has also signed a lucrative US$2 billion oil contract with Iran without being submitted to any open pressure from the United States and the European Union. This situation is quite different from the time when Japan signed the Azadegan oil contract in 2004. Facing heavy pressures from its American and European allies, it abandoned the contract so vital to its energy security.

Whether or not Japan has benefited from any behind-the-scenes dealings over Iran's nuclear issue, the NIE report has complicated the ongoing battle in the Japanese Diet between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its newly-empowered archrival in the opposition camp, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), over the extension the special counterterrorism law that would re-authorize the presence of Maritime Self-Defense Forces in the Indian Ocean to provide fuel to the US-led naval forces there.

Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe resigned when he found himself unable to fight the DPJ over the law. His successor, Prime Minister Fukuda, has so far been unsuccessful in convincing the main opposition party, as well as a very reluctant public, to support the re-authorization of the country's maritime mission in that region.

The United States deceived Tokyo and the world on the issue of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in 2003, and after that, Japan still sided with the US over the course of the Iraq War politically, economically, and logistically. In the end, the US Congress repaid Japan's contribution with an embarrassing resolution demanding the Japanese government apologize for wrongdoings it committed more than six decades ago.

Japan's European friends are no exception. While top ambassadors from major European countries in Tokyo continuously urge Japanese politicians to extend the anti-terror law, their affiliated governments in Strasbourg follow the Americans in asking Japan to once again bow to China in regard to other matters.

This is undoubtedly a shabby way of treating a loyal ally; and in the shadow of all these crucial events, whether or not Japanese lawmakers find the will to proceed with the plan to extend the anti-terror law remains to be seen.