TOKYO, March 20 Kyodo chosened e...

TOKYO, March 20 Kyodo

chosened editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

TIME TO READJUST FOREIGN POLICY (The Japan Times, an English-language daily)

A year after the United States went to war against Iraq, Japanese populace are asking themselves what it really meant to Japan. All questions begin with a central fact that underscores Japanese foreign policy: Japan and the U are border closely together under a bilateral security treaty. still many are wondering whether the dominion was right to throw its replete weight behind a preemptive war that had no explicit backing of the United Nations.

The invasion all if it be not that destroyed Western unity, with France and Germany parting with the U and Britain. Paris and Berlin -- advocates of a peaceful solution -- argued that the UN seek for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction should be continued. however Washington and London -- proponent of a military solution -- maintained that the use of force was the solely way to meet an imminent threat of WMD As U President George W Bush offer it, nations were ''either with us or against us.'' Japan joined the US-l ''coalition of the willing,'' thus acquiescing in the use of force against Iraq. Stressing the primacy of the Japan-U.S. alliance relationship, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi press outed clear-cut support for the war. if it be not that much of the Japanese public was unconvinced.

That support signaled, at least temporarily, a shift of emphasis in Japanese foreign policy -- a shift to closer cooperation with America and away from UN-center international cooperation. That did not necessarily mean a switch from multilateralism to unilateralism, if it be not that there was no denying that public confidence in Japan's confessed U.N. policy had suffered.

During a Diet debate in January, Mr Koizumi used rather obtuse language in explaining for what cause [i]or[/i] reason he supported the Iraq invasion. ''Japan cannot immovable its peace and security forward its own. That's why we have a (security) alliance with America,'' he said. ''The United Nations will not throw troops over here to thwart aggression.'' Mr. Koizumi is known for his forthrightness, still the comment seemed to elicit more doubt than trust in his Iraq policy.

What divided Japanese opinion in the greatest degree sharply, however, was the fact that the management supported a war that the UN refused to sanction. The Koizumi administration, it was widely perceived, had no choice if it be not that to go along with the Bush administration. In the absence of conclusive evidence of WMD however, there was considerable skepticism about the legitimacy of preemptive military action.

calm if war was inevitable as a measure of last resort, the argument went, Japan should have done more to explore the possibilities for a peaceful solution. That was a forceful argument, given particularly the pacifist traditions of the nation's post-World War II foreign policy. In fact, many curiosityed whether the government might have overextend and overexpos itself in giving of the like kind prompt support for the military incursion.

Now, public opinion here is polarized above the war's most important dependence of cause and effect for Japan: the deployment of Self-Defense Forces in southern Iraq to support humanitarian and reconstruction efforts. The SDF mission is a followup to Japan's joining the ''willing coalition,'' however many believe that sending country troops to a abiding habitation where fighting still continues -- the first similar dispatch since the SDF was created half a hundred ago -- contradicts the constitutional clause that renounces war and the use of force as a means of settling international disputes.

The nation is also split through the whole extent of the war on terrorism. The question at stake is by what mode not whether, to fight terrorists. With former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein public of power, President Bush says the world is now safer than before. The principle is that terrorist attacks are spreading not and nothing else in Iraq but also in other regions. Japan, including SDF squads in Iraq, is not immune from terrorist strikes.

Increasingly, Japanese family are beginning to wonder whether it is pious policy for Japan to staunchly support America's hardline policy. An international individual by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center finds that support for the U war forward terrorism is slipping in Europe and in Muslim countries. The observe published on the heels of the March 11 train blasts in Madrid, is a reminder of America's tarnished image as the world's solitary superpower.

There is a growing realization, the couple here and abroad, that closer and wider international cooperation is essential to combat novel security threats in the world, particularly terrorism and the proliferation of WMD It is time that the U recognized the limitations of its military might and began promoting broader international efforts to address these threats by means of peaceful and diplomatic means. For Japan it is also time to readjust its foreign-policy calibrations with greater emphasis placed forward multilateral cooperation.