The NIE Report and Japan - How the NIE report influences Japan’s extension of the anti-terror law

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Sat

Dec

2007

Written by Shirzad Azad

Saturday, 29 December 2007 07:44

by Shirzad Azad

Among major U.S. 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, with 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 flip-flop policy over the nuclear issue.

The NIE finally taught newcomer Sarkozy a lesson not to forget the manner of his well-experienced predecessor Jacques Chirac regarding sensitive international stalemates, if he does not like to follow his policy.

Japan, either with Prime Ministers Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe or lately with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, did not change 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 capitalized both economically and politically on U.S. tough policy over Iran's nuclear program. However, it was but very surprised when it found that the United States laughed off the nuclear standoff, saying it was simply a misperception by the otherwise highly sophisticated U.S. intelligence community.

Compared to other Asian countries — from China to India to South Korea and city-state Singapore — Japan's strategy to the issue of Iran's nuclear program was the closest one to the U.S. policy in recent years. This is because those 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, who the Koreans just elected for his mouth-watering promises, may come closer to Japan on important international problems. But an increasingly integrated Korean economy with the Chinese economy, as well as some other critical issues in the region, will soon teach this "Bulldozer" that governing a fast-developing Korean peninsula is not the same as managing Hyundai Corporation.

What really distinguishes Japan's new Persian Gulf policy from other Asian countries is that Japan has already practiced the policy of these Asian toddlers in Middle East for nearly two decades, roughly from the first oil shock of 1973 to the early 1990s. Taking the NIE into consideration, Japan has so far been reluctant to take any official position about U.S. new thinking 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 must be some kind of reciprocal agreement behind the scenes between the main actors in the Iran nuclear issue. Influential European countries might have been offered something in this case, and probably Russia and China as well. This is obvious when we take into account U.S. President George W. Bush's encouragement of the transfer of nuclear fuel to Iran by Russia. China also signed a lucrative $2 billion oil contract with Iran without any pressure from the United States and the European Union. This situation is totally different than the time Japan signed the Azadegan oil contract. Facing mountainous pressures from its American and European allies, it had to forget about the contract so vital or 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 parliament (Diet) between the Japanese ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its empowered arch-rival in the opposition camp, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), over extending the special counterterrorism law, authorizing the presence of Maritime Self-Defense Forces in the Indian Ocean to provide fuel to the U.S.-led naval forces there.

Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe resigned when he found himself not the man for the job of fighting the JDP over the extension of the law. His successor, Prime Minister Fukuda, has so far been unsuccessful in convincing the main opposition party and a reluctant public to support the continuation of the country's maritime mission in that region.

The United States misguided Tokyo on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in 2003, and after that Japan sided with the U.S. over the course of the Iraq War politically, economically and logistically, and in the end the U.S. Congress paid back Japan's contribution with an embarrassing resolution demanding the Japanese government apologize for wrong doings it committed more than six decades earlier. 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.

This is undoubtedly an opportunistic way of treating a loyal ally, and with the shadow of all these decisive events, whether the Japanese lawmakers find any more motivation to proceeds with plan to extend the anti-terror law, waits to be seen.