TOKYO - After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the administration of then-U.S. President George W. Bush judged that the international extremist group al-Qaida was responsible and decided to topple Afghanistan's Taliban regime for harboring it. In 2003, it also brought down Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government, which had no connection to al-Qaida, and led efforts to build new states in both countries. Behind the moves was the profound over-confidence of the United States as the only superpower; it continues to impact the global turmoil today.
U.S.-led nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq failed, creating situations beyond Washington's control. During field research in war-torn Afghanistan in 2008, I collected about 260 survey responses and learned that an overwhelming majority of Afghans believed that reconciliation with the Taliban is the only path to peace.
The following year, as the team leader of the Reconciliation and Reintegration at the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, I supported the creation of a framework to initiate negotiations with the Taliban. Peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban eventually began. In 2020, the United States and the Taliban agreed on a U.S. troop withdrawal, and U.S. forces left the following year as the Taliban took control of all Afghanistan.
I visited Iraq in 2018 and 2019 and met with three vice presidents. A Shiite-led government close to Iran had emerged there, taking a path entirely different from the United States' original objectives. The failures of the two military interventions were recognized by Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, as well as many Americans, and the trauma of those failures has kept the United States from undertaking major military interventions for some time.
In February this year, President Trump launched airstrikes on Iran. But the United States cannot deploy ground troops because the American people strongly oppose such a move after the failures in Afghanistan and Iraq. Airstrikes alone are unlikely to topple a government, leaving stalemate and turmoil. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Israel's fighting in Gaza and the U.S. attack on Iran show that we have entered "a world without rules."
What course should Japan take? Mr. Makoto Iokibe, a specialist in Japanese political and diplomatic history and former president of the National Defense Academy of Japan, argued that the "Japan-U.S. alliance" and "Japan-China accommodation" should be Japan's two pillars. As crisis deepens, Japan should keep stressing the importance of international rules to the United States and seek to improve relations with China. In addition, advancing "stronger cooperation with emerging and developing countries (the Global South)" should be the third key pillar of its national strategy.
When I travel to the Middle East and Africa, I sense trust and respect for Japan; it has supported self-reliance and stability as a peace-seeking nation. Leveraging that trust to expand cooperation with countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America through humanitarian and development aid, followed by trade and investment, would benefit Japanese companies and enrich Japanese people. In order to achieve these outcomes, however, expanding peace in those regions is critical.
Japan's efforts through peace mediation and peacebuilding to expand areas where people can live securely have noble importance; it also increases friends of Japan, which contributes to protecting Japan. Strengthening cooperation with the Global South should become Japan's third national principle as the world order breaks down.
(Daisaku Higashi, born in 1969, is professor and director of the Sophia Institute of International Relations. He also worked in the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan in Kabul as well as Japan's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York as minister-counsellor.)
