So Sorry, Rummy

The U.S. stations 40,000 troops in bases across Japan to defend its ally and guard the region's sea-lanes. An additional 37,000 American soldiers are posted in South Korea to prevent an attack from the unpredictable North. To President George W. Bush, those might seem good reasons to expect help in Iraq from two Asian friends. But last week, a day after the suicide attack in the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriyah that killed 31 people, including 18 Italians, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Japan was suspending plans to dispatch its Self-Defense Forces (S.D.F.) to Iraq by the end of the year. "We could send troops if the circumstances permit," he said. "But they do not." Around the same time, South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun told his Cabinet to limit Korea's contribution to 3,000 soldiers; the U.S. had requested at least 5,000.

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When U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld received the news en route to Tokyo and Seoul, his response was uncharacteristically diplomatic: "[Iraq is] a dangerous country ... Certainly, people need to participate there with their eyes open." Washington realizes that its allies' reticence isn't rank ingratitude: for both Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Roh, meeting U.S. demands could be political suicide. In a survey last month by the daily Asahi Shimbun, 55% of the Japanese public was against sending troops to Iraq. Koizumi's plan to dispatch the S.D.F. has been criticized by his coalition partner the New Komeito and by the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which did so well in last week's parliamentary elections that pundits are heralding a new era of two-party democracy.

Roh is in an even bigger bind. He has called for a high-risk national referendum next month on whether he should continue to govern. "If Roh approves any deployment," says Lee Seung Hun of the Democratic Labor Party, which currently supports Roh, "I can guarantee he'll find the rest of his presidency unbearable." The U.S. is being forced to relearn an old lesson in Asia: all politics are local.