Japan Keeps Its Cool – Why Tokyo’s New Government Is More Pragmatic Than Hawkish

By J. Berkshire Miller and Takashi Yokota

Japan’s recent territorial tussles with China and South Korea and the election of the conservative Shinzo Abe as prime minister have the world worrying that the country is taking a hawkish turn. In practice, however, Tokyo’s new government will toe a moderate line and concentrate on strengthening its diplomatic ties. ….

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http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138770/j-berkshire-miller-and-takashi-yokota/japan-keeps-its-cool?cid=soc-twitter-in-snapshots-japan_keeps_its_cool-012213

As Netanyahu pushes Israel closer to war with Iran, Israelis cannot keep silent

Why aren’t ministers and defense officials standing up right now, when it is still possible, and saying: We will not be a party to this megalomaniacal vision, to this messianic-catastrophic worldview?

By David Grossman

Here’s a possible scenario: Israel attacks Iran despite the strenuous opposition of President Barack Obama, who is practically pleading that Israel leave the work to the United States. Why? Because Benjamin Netanyahu has a historical mind-set and a historical outlook under which, basically, Israel is “the eternal nation” and the United States, with all due respect, is just the Assyria or the Babylonia, the Greece or the Rome, of our age. Meaning: We are everlasting, we are an eternal people, and they, despite all their strength and power, are merely temporary and ephemeral.