Former Foreign Minister Koji Kakizawa faults Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's dispatch of Japanese troops to assist American forces in South Asia as nothing but a "parcel delivery service" that fails to confront contradictions bedeviling Japan's security policy.
In a military sense, he's right. More troubles lie ahead both for crisis management in Japan and for the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.
Even so, measured against Japan's performance in the last two major international challenges to the 50-year-old alliance, Koizumi's handling of the challenges of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington represents a dramatic -- and welcome -- departure.