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Deaths add to Koizumi's
dilemma
By J Sean Curtin
In
an unusually bloody 24-hour period, Japan, South Korea,
Spain, Colombia and the United States all suffered
fatalities in Iraq. The spilling of Japanese blood will
seriously limit the ability of Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi to dispatch Japanese troops to the region, and
may damage relations with Washington. The deaths are
Japan's first casualties in Iraq and have refocused
Japanese public opinion on the country's foreign policy.
Two Japanese diplomats and their Iraqi driver
were killed by gunmen in an ambush on their vehicle near
the city of Tikrit. According to initial reports, the
two had stopped to purchase drinks when their car came
under fire. The tragedy could not have come at a worse
time for Koizumi, who is fighting an uphill battle in
his efforts to send troops to Iraq.
Koizumi has
been resolved to dispatch troops to Iraq, but his plans
have encountered increasing domestic opposition as the
situation continues deteriorate in that country.
Provisional figures for November indicate that 104
coalition troops have been killed in Iraq, including 79
Americans and 25 allied troops. It was the deadliest
month since the war began in mid-March.
November
has also witnessed an increase in large scale attacks
such as a suicide bombing that killed 19 Italian troops
and a lethal ambush that fatally wounded seven Spanish
intelligence officers. Against this backdrop, it has
been extremely difficult for Koizumi to forge a
consensus among lawmakers - not to mention the general
public, 60 percent of whom are opposed to sending troops
- to dispatch Japanese soldiers, even non-combat ones.
Koizumi's position has already been weakened by
his party's mediocre performance in November's election.
His own Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost seats while
the party's more dovish coalition partner, New Komeito,
increased in strength. Further, the dramatic gains made
by the main opposition party, the Democratic Party of
Japan, have put an end to the LDP's longstanding
monopoly of political power. Japan's shifting political
landscape, coupled with rising casualties in Iraq, have
put Koizumi's planned troop deployment under increasing
scrutiny. Keen to fulfill his pledge to President George
W Bush, Koizumi has been embarrassed as he struggles to
muster the domestic political will to send troops to
Iraq.
Although the Japanese parliament has
already approved the deployment of Japanese forces, they
are obliged to serve in designated "non-combat areas".
However, opposition parties insist that Japanese troops
would certainly come under fire regardless of where they
were stationed because there are no "non-combat areas"
in Iraq, an assertion that Koizumi has been unable to
sufficiently address in parliament.
After the
killing the two Japanese diplomats, a grim-faced Koizumi
told the nation, "There is no change in our policy of
not giving into terrorism." His comments echoed those
made a few hours earlier by Spanish Prime Minister Jose
Maria Aznar after seven Spanish soldiers were killed in
an ambush near the Iraqi town of Hilla. Despite their
defiant stands, both prime ministers face overwhelming
domestic opposition to their pro-Bush Iraq policy.
Despite his determination to send Japanese
troops to Iraq, the events of the past month have forced
Koizumi to re-examine Japan's Iraq policy and take into
account the concerns of both the general public and
skeptical lawmakers. In the end, events on the ground in
Iraq will dictate the limits of his authority on the
question of troop deployment. If American-led forces
cannot rapidly stabilize conditions in Iraq, it is
extremely unlikely that Japan will dispatch troops. To
be sure, troop deployment is an issue that has the
potential to create serious political fallout in both
Tokyo and Washington.
J Sean Curtin is
a GLOCOM fellow at the Tokyo-based Japanese Institute of Global
Communications.
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