A Battle of Baghdad?

     The ISIS forces are said to be within 5 to 10 km from the city of Baghdad, the capital of Iraq.  Will they try to storm it?  And who will welcome such a battle to see this historic city to be flattened by naked violence?  The Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff has said that they need at least 15,000 land troops in addition to the air power to stop the tide of the ISIS, or to reoccupy the area taken by them.

     Mr. Obama went so far as to say, one wonders if this is the right moment to say such a thing, that they have been underestimating the power of the ISIS forces and overestimating that of the Iraqi forces.  He sounded rather more optimistic when he made a 15-minute speech on the occasion of the 9/11 anniversary this year.  He said four things.  (1) The ISIS would be stopped by the air power of the broad coalition.  (2) The land forces of the countries in the region would be strengthened.  (3) The outsiders should be stopped from joining the IS forces.  (4) Humanitarian aid would be provided.

     Would these be enough?  Were they not overwhelmingly militarily oriented, even though the US would not be sending the land forces?  Apart from the humanitarian aid at the end, presumably meaning dropping food and water, etc., they were about intensifying bombing, arming the local forces for the use of the modern equipment, and curtailing the incoming of the would-be new soldiers on the other side.  Are they enough?  The above statements by General Dempsy and Mr. Obama were effectively saying that they were not, already, in three weeks' time.

     This writer is not saying that more armed action, let alone the sending of the US boots, are necessary.  Rather it is my view that the US, NATO, or whoever else, who together with Obama looks at the IS as 'a terrorist organization pure and simple' must really sit up and think why this split has occurred, and if the US occupation of Iraq under Maliki, particularly from 2010 onwards, was not instrumental in alienating and distressing the Sunnis.  They should try to isolate by all means available the Sunni masses from the presumably small number of die-hards, rather than to go on annihilating them as terrorists 'pure and simple', which would become increasingly difficult to explain even to the US citizens.  That is the only possible way to avert the Battle of Baghdad.

     But that is not enough in the long-term view.  On the West of the region, there is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  It has been the US and European policy so much in favour of Israel and so much prejudiced against the Palestinians that has made the conflict so persistent and insoluble till today, and probably tomorrow.  Without in the least defending the IS, the Sunni masses must be under the dual psychological oppression, anti-Sunni and more general anti-Muslim.

     On the East, there is the "AfPak" problem, which got worsened by the "Obama's Wars", referring to the US military surge in 2009.  I will not go into this here.  But the question of the possible Battle of Baghdad should be placed in the whole spectrum of this East to the West to find a political solution.  They are all related.  The new President was inaugurated in Afghanistan yesterday.  Let us wish all the best to his, and the new CEO's, administration.      

      

The US Middle East Policy and Japan

     Then what would be Japan's position with regard to the emerging situation in the Middle East as described in the previous column?  It is not possible to discuss it without reference to the US policy toward the region.  Mr. Obama is scheduled to announce his new, or new but old, policy in a day or two, on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary.  So here we will present our opinion on the basis of some hypothesis concerning the Japan-US relations.

     We have discussed how the UN Charter defines the concept of 'self-defence' several times already.  It refers both to the right of the individual self-defence and the collective self-defence. It has been the policy of the Japanese Government that Japan has the right of the former and can exercise it by the Self-Defence Forces(SDF), but cannot exercise the latter in view of Article 9 of the Constitution although she possesses it.

     But the Article 9 says that we will not resort to war.  We will not have any war potential. And we will deny the right of belligerency. Therefore, strictly speaking, it is doubtful if Japan has even the right of the individual self-defence, let alone of the collective self-defence.  Almost all the wars in modern history, not only of Japan, have been fought in the beautiful name of self-defence.  According to the Government's view, however, almost everything is allowed even under this Article, except to wage war together with some allies.  This is exactly what the present Abe Government has wanted to make possible.

     Therefore they have adopted in the Cabinet meeting on 1 July this year a document in order to, in their eyes, fill the gap.  This lengthy document states toward its end that 'not only in case of an armed attack on Japan, but also in case of an armed attack on another country in close relations with Japan which would endanger the existence of our country, it will be allowed by the Constitution to use force to the minimum degree to expel the said danger if there is no other way to do so'.(translation by this writer)

     Thus the Government has introduced a grave change in the interpretation of the Article 9.  It has publicly proclaimed that Japan will go to war for the sake of other country or countries.  The document adds that in terms of international law such action may be based on the right of collective self-defence.  The Cabinet decision has become known widely in the nation as one that has made the right of collective self-defence exercisable, and as such been very unpopular.  But the document itself has placed its emphasis on the interpretation of the Constitution, and not on the application of the UN Charter.  This leads us to suspect that the document itself is part of the preparation for the revision of the Article 9, which in the opinion of many has been the framework of the post-war Japan.  That means this is effectively a Constitutional amendment.

     What should be emphasized here is that the above statement on the use of force refers to no geographical limit.  It may well include the Middle East.  The close country to Japan is another name of the US.  Suppose the US puts pressure on Japan to be a part of the new anti-ISIS coalition?  We will watch Obama's 9/11 speech carefully.  Hopefully it will be worth serious consideration.

    



    
           

What is ISIS ? How Do We Understand It ?

     It was two months and a half ago that I wrote my last blog in this column.  Even before that my writing had been rather sporadic.  I sincerely apologize for my idleness, at least as far as this column is concerned.  This writer was terribly busy writing a book from 15 September 2013 to 15 August 2014, and was not able to attend to all other things seriously.  The book is on Gandhi. Right now I am trying to have it published in India in English.  I will talk about it in greater detail if and when it comes out.

     In the meantime there have been certain changes in our environment.  There was a very good article in yesterday's Japanese newspaper Asahi by Sakai Keiko, one of our foremost Middle East specialists.

     Her argument is roughly as follows.  The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a fight to restore to themselves the life and the human rights by the local Arabs who had coexisted there but had been pushed out of the land at the time of the creation of Israel.  There was a time when the creation of a country in such a way was allowed.  It was also the time when the Jewish people had almost despaired of living on in Europe.  Israel was the realization of the ideals of the Jewish people no matter how the Arabs who had been living there were affected.

     If so, she continues, and this is where this article is original, what about the ISIS?  Suppose they are the people who entertain the idea that they want to establish a pure and orderly Islamic state in the present lawless countries of Syria and Iraq ?  

     It is original because she has combined the Israeli-Palestinian question and the ISIS.  She is not suggesting any particular solution on the ISIS here, but says that the danger comes from outside when some group of people fix their eye on a certain land as their own, their holy land, their mother country.  It is clear that she is after a peaceful solution.

     Right now the US is looking for the ways and means of attacking the ISIS more effectively, if possible from inside Syria also.  It seems to this writer that that would mean a potential danger to involve Japan after the recent change in our security policies.  Let me discuss it the next time.          Thank you.    
   
     

Shangri-La Dialogue

     Shangri-La Dialogue was held at Singapore to discuss the security situation in Asia, on the last day of May and the first of June.  But was it a dialogue?  Here is a photo of the pre-lunch reception on the first day.  Japan's Defence Minister, Mr. Onodera, was shaking hands with some delegate on the right side, while China's General Wan, Deputy Chief of Staff of People's Liberation Army, was talking to some other delegate on the extreme left, never exchanging a word even casually.

     The Chinese delegates stressed that the islands in the East and South China Seas belonged to China for a long time by now, but were taken over by the Japanese imperialism.  Whether it was China or any other that was a dominant power on the sea, it is true that long-distance, inter-country trade (between China and Japan, for instance) was prosperous on these seas.  But when some one says that China was active around these islands since, for instance, the ages of Han, or Tang dynasties, and therefore they belonged to them even now, we get into trouble.  Do we have to go back to the eras of Han, or Tang, to determine the present boundaries?  Surely what is applied to China must be applied to others also.

     It is true that some of the islands had been taken over by Japan by war.  Those islands, Taiwan included, have been written down in Peace Treaties.  The islands in South China Sea were abandoned by Japan according to Article 2(f) of San Francisco Peace Treaty, without mentioning whom they would belong to.  But Senkaku is not in any of the treaties, nor is it in any of the treaties by which Japan annexed new territories. Why? Because they were not taken by Japan in a war.  China started claiming Senkaku not in the Han, not even in the Tang era, but in 1970's, which is unjust.  There may have been Chinese activities, but that applies to every where, and every people.  To send warships and warplanes is quite unbecoming a Permanent Member of the UNSC.

      

Egypt and Thailand-the Military Takeover and its Future

     For two days, 26 and 27 May, the Egyptians were supposed to elect their new President.  But even though a third day, 28 May, was added to the voting schedule, a very extraordinary measure, the voting rate seems to have been less than 50%.

     On the very day of 4 July 2013, when the military put Mr.Morsi under detention and took over the political power of that country, I wrote in these columns that this was a coup, Mr.Morsi was a democratically elected President no matter how many people might not like his way, and the military should immediately go back to their barracks.  Unfortunately the military had stayed on, and had its former Defence Minister got elected the new President.

     One would hope that the people of Egypt would not be unduly discouraged by these events, and start working for something great which could be called a second 'Arab Spring',  deep-rooted among the people both urban and rural and in a non-violent way without risking the danger of a head-on clash with the military.

     The military coup of 22 May, preceded by Martial Law of two days ago, in Thailand has impressed the outsiders that, rightly or wrongly, that country has changed but little over the years, say, since 1976.  The military has been a weapon in the hands of the Royal Household, aristocracy, and the privileged at that time and also now.

     These elements felt threatened by nothing more than peaceful movements, perhaps with some demands for redistribution of wealth.  Among others, they did not like to have elections, and induced the military to stop having elections to the Lower House, and keep the Upper House only half elected, as the previous coup of 2006 had transformed it from the fully elected one.  It will be wrong to think that what has been going on in this country for many years by now was a struggle for power between the two contending political parties.  The military was clearly taking the side of one who were opposed to the elections.

     If you look around the other Asian countries, many if not all of them are on the way for more armament.  And we are sure to find the 'Merchant of Death' across the border.  It is time, however, for the civil society of those countries seriously to get together to think about it.