Japan PM stakes his job on \"War on Terror\" commitment

Japan PM stakes his job on \"War on Terror\" commitment

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe indicated Sunday that he is ready to resign if he fails to get Parliament to extend Japan's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean for U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in and around Afghanistan, stressing that its extension has become an "international commitment" he needs to fulfill by "all possible" means.

"I have no intention of clinging to my duties" as prime minister if the mission is not extended beyond the Nov. 1 legal deadline, Abe said in a news conference after the weekend summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Sydney.

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As background on the current mission: As part of the Afghan mission, Japan operates what the Washington Post described as "a floating gas station" in the Indian ocean, pumping free fuel to any and all ships involved in the WOT. To date, this has been in excess of 128 Million gallons. The vast majority of the fuel has gone to US warships.

However - this deployment is quite unpopular in Japan - and the opposition now has enough seats in the Diet to block it`s next renewal, slated for November 1.

Given the catastrophic nature of Abe`s cabinet (I`ve lost track of the number of scandal-related resignations in the past few months), it`s pretty clear that the opposition will seize on these comments as an easy way to get Abe out, and equally possible that Abe sees this as a way of getting out with his honour intact: he can resign on moral grounds.

The contribution works out to roughly 21,000,000 gallons of fuel per year, plus the logistics of delivery and so forth. Ironically, a good portion of it is Iranian in origin, paid for in Yen these days.





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