Hirofumi Goto
February 28, 1998
There is a sense of relief here in Japan that a military strike by the United States has been avoided in the ongoing Iraq crisis. The Japanese public remain uncovinced as to the need for a military response, favoring instead diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis. The initial opposition of the US towards diplomatic efforts by the UN Secretary-General was seen as unnecessarily provocative, and has been questioned openly on several influential news programmes. Now that the threat of an immediate war has subsided, several analysts have commented on the chain of events and pronounced Saddam Hussein as the "crafty winner of the Chicken Game".
Several other commentaries have questioned the legitimacy of the US' hardball tactics, although this view is in the minority and most seem to resigned to accept that the US will have its way regardless of what the rest of the world thinks. In any case the whole crisis is seen as "something personal" between the US and Iraq, and many are wondering why the rest of the world has been pulled in to it.
The Government of Japan has taken a cautious approach to the situation and has abstained from making any decisive stance. Japan has not made any personnel contributions to the military build-up.
Meanwhile Japanese diplomats have been furiously gathering information at the UN. There seems to be some hard feeling there because the US has once again cold-shouldered Japan and has passed along little information via the diplomatic route.
The Foreign Ministry has set up a special web page on the Iraqi crisis, updated daily, reflecting public interest towards the crisis. The web page contains translated information from government and media sources, including movements of major players in the crisis such as the United Nations (especially the P5) and Iraq as well as less-publicized political movements in Europe and the Middle East.
These efforts are in contrast to the 1990 Iraq crisis, where Japan was virtually cut off diplomatically and the Foreign Ministry subseqeuntly blamed for being reactive to events and useless in the fast-moving geopolitical arena.
