LOS ANGELES -- Since September 2001, Tokyo has come a long way toward redefining its international security interests. One significant result of this is that should any American hostages be taken in the war with Iraq or anywhere else in the Middle East, the Japanese are not likely to be indifferent to the issue as they were in 1979, when Americans were taken hostage during the Iranian revolution.
For many it is ancient history now, but the image of Japanese leaders scurrying about the Middle East after the first (1973) and second (1979) oil shocks, groveling in front of the oil-producing nations' leaders and offering them yen loans, taking an anti-Israel political position, and doing just about anything the oil producers asked, is still vivid in the minds of many.
One of the defining moments at that time was when Japanese Foreign Minister Saburo Okita was told by U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance of his displeasure with Tokyo's policy on Iran and the holding of American Embassy staff as hostages. Vance accused Okita and Japanese leaders of "insensitivity," and major U.S. newspapers carried that phrase as their headline when Okita and Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira met with U.S. President Jimmy Carter on March 21, 1980.