Japan Debates Soldiers in Iraq

Japan’s soul-searching over whether a country pledged to pacifism should be sending soldiers into foreign war zones is likely to be rekindled this week, sparked by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s declaration that Japanese troops will join a multinational force to provide security in Iraq.

Koizumi made the commitment at the Group of 8 summit last week, assuring President Bush that 550 Japanese ground troops currently deployed in a town in southern Iraq would switch hats and join a U.N. mission to be formed after June 30. It is a risky move in a country where polls have shown a majority opposed to the war and subsequent occupation.

By heightening Japan’s role in Iraq, Koizumi is tapping into a powerful political impulse at home: the push led by conservative and nationalist politicians to unshackle the country from its pacifist constitution.

Many Japanese believe the post-World War II, U.S.-imposed constitution denies them the right to play any significant role in world affairs, and momentum is gathering to rewrite it. The drive now crosses the political spectrum, including many on the left who resent living under a made-in-the-USA constitution.

But the greatest debate centers on the document’s landmark Article 9, in which Japan legally renounces war and “the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.” That prohibition against using force remains a blessing to some Japanese, a burr to others.

Koizumi has promised to amend the document next year, and a poll last month showed a doubling of support -- to 31% -- of those who want to amend Article 9. That mood is felt among legislators, says Hideo Den, a Social Democratic councilor. “Many younger members believe that Japan should be a normal country in the international community, with military power,” Den said.

That was certainly the tone Koizumi struck in making his announcement last week. “In response to the unanimous adoption of a new U.N. resolution, Japan, as a responsible member of the international community, wants to make contributions that are commensurate with its status,” he said at a news conference in Savannah, Ga.

Delivered in the unapologetically presidential style that characterizes his leadership, the declaration prompted some grumbling back home. Any move to change the status of the small contingent in Iraq still requires ratification by Koizumi’s Liberal Democratic Party and the two smaller parties in the governing coalition. And many of those politicians chafe at Koizumi’s act first, consult later, approach.

There is also likely to be resistance from opposition parties and those Japanese appalled at becoming further entwined in the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

“What is happening in Iraq shows that being allied with the United States is more dangerous than not being allied with the United States,” said Naoto Amaki, a former ambassador to Lebanon who resigned from the Japanese Foreign Ministry over his opposition to the Iraq war. “But Koizumi will never withdraw the troops no matter what the situation because he has committed himself to supporting Bush.

“He believes good relations with America will solve all our problems.”

For their part, government officials insist that switching to the U.N.-mandated force will not require passing a law through a raucous parliament, as the initial deployment did last summer. Unidentified officials were also quoted in Japanese newspapers Sunday suggesting that the mission may become more militarily adventurous, with Japanese transport planes airlifting supplies into Baghdad.

Japanese planes currently fly only into airfields in more stable southern Iraq, close to the base in Samawah where Tokyo’s troops are stationed.

It is widely accepted that expanding the mission in Iraq is a way for the Japanese government to create a precedent for a more muscular international presence down the road. Since the mid-1990s, successive Japanese governments have incrementally increased their level of military participation in trouble spots after what is remembered as the national embarrassment of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when Japanese soldiers were sidelined.

Then, the Japanese government settled for helping underwrite the cost of that war.

Until the latest foray into Iraq, Japan continued to restrict itself to participating in peacekeeping missions -- for example, in Cambodia and East Timor -- where cease-fires were already in effect. Even in Iraq, the constitutional straitjacket of Article 9 forces the Japanese government to maintain that the military’s role is exclusively humanitarian.

The government’s mantra is that its troops are in Iraq solely to bring water and medical supplies to Iraqis. Much of Iraq may still be a combat zone, spokesmen say. But Samawah, they insist, is not.

Yet, as the insurgency continues in Iraq, even Koizumi’s supporters regard that as an increasingly dubious contention.

“It’s a problem,” acknowledged Liberal Democratic legislator Mitsuo Horiuchi, addressing the deep skepticism among the Japanese public that anyone could describe Iraq as not a war zone. Koizumi has to ask, he said, whether “it is really possible for the [Japanese Self-Defense Forces] to stick to humanitarian activities only.”