http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0302/p07s01-woap.html
from the March 02, 2005 edition
Politics of Iraqi security draw Australia, Japan closer
Last week, Australia announced it would send 450 more soldiers to Iraq
to protect Japan's forces.
By Janaki Kremmer | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
SYDNEY � The decision to deploy - or withdraw - troops in Iraq has
posed difficult political considerations for leaders around the world.
But for Australia and Japan, the contributions they've made to Iraq's
postwar security effort have brought fresh opportunities to strengthen
their relationship - and reshape Asian relations in the process.
The most recent case in point: Australia announced Feb. 22 that it
would send 450 more troops to Iraq to replace departing Dutch troops
who protected the Japanese Self-Defense Forces engaged in
reconstruction work in southern Iraq.
Tuesday, Japanese government sources said Australian Foreign Minister
Alexander Downer plans to visit Japan in mid-March to discuss
bilateral cooperation in reconstructing Iraq.
This could pose political risk for Australian Prime Minister John
Howard, who had pledged not to send peacekeepers. But he is counting
on stronger ties with Japan to outweigh those risks.
"I think in this Asia-Pacific region, the Iraq issue is viewed less
through the prism of a war on terror, than how it relates to strategic
affairs in the region," says Hugh White, professor of strategic
affairs at the Australian National University, in Canberra.
According to Professor White, South Korea has sent 3,600 troops to
Iraq - more than Australia and Japan combined - not out of any loyalty
to the US, but because it is looking for support on the Korean peninsula.
Strategic alliance
Explaining his reasons to a surprised Australian press, Mr. Howard
said that Iraq was at a "tilting point" and that it was the "right
decision. "It's difficult. I know it's not popular with some people,
but it's the right decision and, in the fullness of time, that will be
demonstrated."
He also emphasized that Japan's continued presence in Iraq was vital.
"Working alongside and in partnership with a close regional ally and
partner such as Japan is very important from Australia's point of
view," Howard said.
Experts note that although Canberra has been developing its military
relationship with Tokyo since the end of the cold war, previous
contacts have been among officials; going to Iraq would enable some
service-to-service contact.
Under pressure
With only 160 troops on the ground in Iraq, engaged in noncombat
roles, Howard has been under increasing pressure from the United
States and Britain to provide more ground support.
Experts say that the paucity of Australia's postwar military
contribution, embarrasses its military when dealing with its British
and American counterparts. And last year, Mr. Downer rejected UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan's request for troops to protect the UN
mission inside Iraq.
This January, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told Japan that
Britain would cooperate fully to ensure the safety of the
approximately 550 Japanese troops - whose use of arms is strictly
limited by their country's Constitution - in the mostly peaceful
Shiite-dominated Al Muthanna province. But Mr. Straw did not specify
who would be assigned that task.
So when Howard took a phone call from his Japanese counterpart,
Junichiro Koizumi, on Feb. 18 asking for his assistance, the
Australian leader saw it as an opportunity to ingrat- iate himself
once more to his traditional alliance partners in the West, and
further, to develop Australia's strategic relationship with Japan.
Japanese aims
For its part, Japan is looking to strengthen its relationship with the
US when it comes to needing support in its political dealings with China.
"Although Japan has an excellent economic relationship with China, it
has a chilly strategic and political relationship with Beijing," says
Mr. White.
Ongoing tension between China and Japan over gas fields that may
straddle their maritime boundaries has been fueled by news that China
has granted one of its companies the right to carry out exploration in
Japan's exclusive economic zone in the East China Sea.
Mr. Koizumi's contentious annual visits to the war-tainted Yasukuni
Shrine - the spiritual symbol of Japan's wartime reign - have also
added to the tension.
But Japan has another agenda as well: It needs to make a bigger global
security contribution to gain support for its bid for a permanent seat
on the UN Security Council.
Tokyo is still smarting from the first Gulf War, when it was excluded
from the list of countries thanked by Kuwait for helping the war
effort because it sent billions of dollars instead of troops - a move
that was dismissed as "checkbook diplomacy."
"It was a humiliating failure of statecraft, and Prime Minister
Koizumi has now gone to exceptional lengths to be able to get domestic
support to send troops to Iraq, and this is viewed positively by
Australia," says White.
Others say that Japan is only a "military liability" in Iraq. "It's
farcical that Japan is sending troops which themselves need
protection," says Aurelia George Mulgan, a Japan expert at the
University of New South Wales, in Sydney.
So far, Australians have not reacted strongly to Howard's moves.
"Frankly, the mood of the general public is that unless there are a
lot of casualties, even if Iraq descends into civil war, unless a
whole lot of Australians get killed, we won't care," says Aldo Borgu,
program director at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra.
Only one Australian soldier has been killed in Iraq since the start of
the war.
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