JAPAN: Mr Koizumi's political fate may well hinge on events in Iraq, reports David McNeill in Tokyo
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had the look yesterday of a man who had gambled big and lost, a once seemingly invincible leader with rock-star like popularity who is now facing the biggest crisis of his political career.
Mr Koizumi gambled that he could keep public opinion onside after sending his country's Self Defence Forces (SDF) to Iraq, despite enormous misgivings in this still strongly pacifist country, which boasts a constitution prohibiting the use of international force.
In the tortured debates leading up to Japan's first dispatch of troops to a combat zone since the second World War, his government tried to quell this opposition by arguing that the SDF would be in a safe part of Iraq and that the Iraqi people would understand that the 500 ground troops would be on a humanitarian mission to supply water and other essentials.
Both of Mr Koizumi's arguments now lie in the dust of Samawah in southern Iraq, where the 500 untested Japanese troops nervously patrol their base camp following an apparent mortar attack on Thursday. And any remaining hope that Japan's reluctant role as US ally would somehow spare it from the carnage now unfolding in Iraq were destroyed yesterday by the harrowing sight of ordinary Japanese citizens with knives and swords to their throats.
Their captors, a group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, have threatened to burn the hostages alive by Sunday unless the SDF pulls out of the country.
It is hard to imagine three more blameless victims. Teenager Noriaki Imai, a fresh-faced 18-year-old peace campaigner and budding journalist who had once written an article criticising the sending of the SDF and who had gone to Iraq to study the effects of depleted uranium shells. Volunteer Nahoko Takato, who appears to have spent much of her 34 years helping the poor children of Asia. And 32-year-old Soichiro Koriyama, who left the SDF in 1996 to work as a journalist for the liberal press.
The three represent what most Japanese consider their most valuable contributions to the world since the war: neutrality and compassion for others. Their predicament has stunned a country that has grown used to thinking of itself as being aloof from the messy world beyond its borders.
Pictures of the hostages ran all day yesterday on Japanese TV, with their distraught families pleading with the government to meet the terrorists' demands. Mr Imai's mother tearfully pleaded with the government to immediately pull the SDF out of Iraq. Ms Takato's father said: "I'm just praying for her return and that the government will solve this thing."
The secretary general of the main opposition Democratic Party, Katsuya Okada, which opposed sending SDF troops to Iraq, was more scathing: "The prime minister is to blame for this situation."
Newspaper editorials have carried more mixed messages: the right-leaning Yomiuri said that Japan should "stand firm against the cowardly threats," but unfortunately for the prime minister, much of Japan disagrees.
"The troops should leave," says housewife Reiko Nakagawa. "Of course our relationship with the US is important, but if the people of Iraq don't want us, why are we there?"
Hundreds of protesters, including Buddhist monks, staged a protest yesterday outside the Diet (parliament), calling for the SDF to be pulled out. Many others believe the SDF should at least withdraw to Kuwait until the situation eases.
The government, however, seems set for collision with public sentiment.
Mr Koizumi yesterday said he would "not give in to these despicable threats," adding that the government's priority was to get the hostages freed. His chief spokesman, Mr Yasuo Fukuda, bristled at the constant questions from reporters about a possible troop withdrawal. "Do you think it is okay to be swayed by terrorism and swallow their demands? It is not that simple," he said. "We are there to help the Iraqi people."
The prime minister formed an emergency committee to deal with the crisis and sent a senior foreign ministry official to Jordan to try to rescue the hostages, but all served essentially to emphasise how powerless his government is.
The stakes for Mr Koizumi will be upped tomorrow by a particularly badly timed visit by US Vice President Dick Cheney, who will pressure him to stand firm for the sake of the 50-year-old US-Japan alliance.
Mr Koizumi's political fate may well hinge on what happens in the deserts of Iraq thousands of miles away.