Helping Out in Iraq

The National Diet voted at the end of January to approve the government’s decision in December to dispatch the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq. Earlier in January an advance party from the Ground Self-Defense Force set off for Samawah in southern Iraq; the deployment of the GDSF unit there is scheduled to be completed by the end of March. Elements of the Maritime SDF and Air SDF are also being dispatched.

This is a significant development in a number of respects. For one thing, it represents a move by Japan to contribute with its own personnel in dealing with an international conflict, something it has never done since renouncing the use of military force under its post–World War II Constitution.

In his policy speech at the start of this year’s ordinary Diet session on January 19, Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichirô declared, “It is the responsibility of the international community . . . to develop an environment in Iraq whereby the people of Iraq can endeavor, filled with hope, for the reconstruction of their own country.” He asserted that Japan would not be fulfilling its own international responsibilities if it were to offer only material assistance and leave personnel contributions up to other countries. Thus, he explained, the government had decided to provide both financial assistance and a personnel contribution, including the dispatch of the SDF.

The position set forth by Koizumi matches that presented in the article below by Takashima Hatsuhisa, press secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Both the prime minister and the Foreign Ministry have been working to publicize the fact that the Japanese government has adopted a more activist approach to international diplomacy.

Another significant point is the decision to use the SDF for this mission. The case that the government made to justify this decision was two-sided. The argument seemed to be an awkward balancing act, with the government pulled between the desire to present a positive external image and the need to temper domestic fears and reservations.

To foreign observers, a decision by Japan to send the SDF, as opposed to members of nongovernmental organizations or other civilian personnel, looks like a move to dispatch military forces, regardless of the fact that Japan avoids the term military in reference to the SDF and positions its forces as being strictly defensive in nature. It was in fact the government’s intention that the move be seen this way externally, thereby impressing other countries with Japan’s willingness to provide “hard” cooperation, possibly involving even the loss of life. On the domestic front, however, the government stressed the fact that the SDF troops were being sent to make a peaceful contribution to Iraq’s recovery, not to conduct peacekeeping operations—and certainly not to engage in combat. The focus here was on the case that the dispatch was not in violation of the constitutional ban on the use of military force.

When the Japanese government decided to support the United States in the war against Iraq last year, the main reason it advanced was the importance of keeping the Japan-US alliance strong. But in seeking the support of the Japanese public for the dispatch of the SDF to Iraq, it referred repeatedly to the resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Council last fall calling for members to support the reconstruction effort there. In other words, the prime minister and his administration shifted to a stance of advancing two reasons: the alliance with the United States and the UN resolution. Maintenance of the bilateral alliance and support for the UN have been two of the three pillars of Japan’s foreign policy for many years, the third being cooperation with other Asian countries. The government judged that it had a better chance of winning domestic approval for its decision by phrasing its argument in terms of these two pillars.

A third point to note is that the timing of the decision was adjusted in response to developments on both the domestic and international scenes. Though Koizumi promised at a relatively early stage that Japan would send the SDF, the actual move to do so was repeatedly postponed because of the instability of the situation in Iraq. The danger was highlighted by the August terrorist attack on the UN office in Baghdad, in the wake of which Secretary General Kofi Annan decided to pull all of the organization’s foreign personnel out of the country. But when the Italian forces in Iraq were struck on November 12, losing 19 lives, the Italian government responded by reaffirming its resolve to maintain its presence. Other countries with troops there similarly held firm in the face of casualties. This affected the stance of the Japanese government, which came to fear that its own resolve would be questioned if it delayed further. Another factor was the slaying of two Japanese diplomats in Iraq on November 29. In this context, the government decided that it needed to act, and on December 9 the cabinet approved a basic plan for dispatching the SDF and some civilian personnel under the Special Measures Law on Humanitarian and Reconstruction Assistance in Iraq.

Opinion polls have revealed a shift toward acceptance of the government’s decision. Even in the daily Asahi Shimbun, which had been campaigning against the dispatch of the SDF, a survey published on January 20 revealed 40% in favor of the move, up from 34% in December. And in the most recent poll conducted by the Yomiuri Shimbun, which has actively backed the Japan-US alliance and favored the SDF’s dispatch, when asked how they viewed “the dispatch of the SDF to Iraq for humanitarian assistance,” 58.4% expressed either a favorable or somewhat favorable assessment (survey conducted February 21–22, results published Feburary 27). Among those voicing favorable views, the most commonly cited reason was “Japan’s responsibility as a member of the international community” (73.1%), followed by “importance of the Japan-US alliance” (35.3%).

It seems quite possible that even before the war in Iraq began the Koizumi administration had already decided on its basic policy regarding this matter, namely, that if a war occurred Japan would send the SDF to assist with the subsequent reconstruction effort. But the process by which the actual decision to go ahead was reached revealed the reactive (as opposed to proactive) nature of our country’s approach.

The fourth significant point I would note is that Koizumi put off the settlement of the constitutional issue raised by the SDF mission. Instead of tackling the issue, he avoided it by declaring that the government’s interpretation of the Constitution remained unchanged.

The Iraq Assistance Special Measures Law, which was passed by the Diet last July, limits the dispatch of the SDF to “noncombat zones.” This became a major point of contention in subsequent legislative deliberations. In the debate preceding the January vote on the government’s decision (the law provides that the government must seek Diet approval but allows it to do so after the fact), the opposition pressed hard, questioning the grounds for classifying the Samawah area as a noncombat zone. Koizumi stuck firm to the government’s position that it was indeed a noncombat zone, while admitting, “Nobody can guarantee that it’s a ‘no danger’ zone.” In the end it seems that much of the public came around to the view that it is not practical to distinguish between combat zones and noncombat zones in today’s Iraq and that the SDF were in fact being sent to a danger zone.

The noncombat-zone issue is more than an issue of whether the SDF may suffer casualties. It relates directly to Article 9 of the Constitution, under which Japan renounces “the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.” The Japanese government has long maintained that this precludes our country from engaging in “collective self-defense”—meaning, in a Japanese context, that Japan cannot send forces to engage in combat operations overseas in cooperation with the United States. Under the logic of this interpretation, it is not logically possible for the government to send armed SDF members to a place that it knows to be a combat zone. In order for it to do so, it would either have to have the Constitution amended or revise the official interpretation of it. It has done neither; instead, it has insisted that the dispatch of the SDF is to a noncombat zone and therefore is not for combat purposes. But at the same time it has declared that the area in question is a danger zone, and it has sought to leave room for possible military cooperation with other countries’ forces.

A final point I would note is that the government has been using this juncture, namely the war in Iraq and the related moves to dispatch the SDF and strengthen the Japan-US alliance, as an occasion to press ahead with its agenda of legislation to deal with national security emergencies, something that has been a priority ever since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Last June it secured enactment of three such measures, and on March 9 the cabinet approved a package of seven additional national-security-related bills to submit to the Diet. The object of this legislation is to close longstanding gaps in provisions to deal with attacks on Japan and similar security emergencies, including the rights and obligations of the public, the provision of materiel and services for US forces, and the searching of enemy vessels backed up by the possible use of military weapons.

The process leading to the dispatch of the SDF to Iraq is in a sense typical of the way change happens in Japan, involving shifts both in international appraisals of our country and in the views of the domestic public. The problem is the lack of coherence in the logic behind the move and the arguments advanced to explain it. This lack is liable to have a major effect on Japan’s future attempts to exercise international responsibility and on its prestige within the international community. (Watanabe Hirotaka, Professor, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)

© 2004 Japan Echo Inc.