{"id":20789,"date":"2026-05-12T03:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T03:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/20789\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T03:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T03:12:07","slug":"view-from-tokyo-has-iran-war-changed-confidence-in-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/20789\/","title":{"rendered":"View From Tokyo: Has Iran War Changed Confidence In The US?"},"content":{"rendered":"

(MENAFN<\/a>– Asia Times)
\nOriginally published by Pacific Forum, this article is republished with permission.<\/p>\n

The war on Iran waged by the US and Israel has caused multidimensional and likely irreversible tectonic shifts. At the global level, the negative effects of the war extend far beyond economic aspects such as soaring energy prices and the onset of international stagflation. This war has unnecessarily triggered a transformation in US-Russia relations, a deterioration in US-China relations, and a worsening of transatlantic ties.<\/p>\n

Naturally, in the Indo-Pacific region, it is having a complex and ambivalent impact on the trust that US allies and friendly nations place in the United States.<\/p>\n

Among these variables, I will examine the changes in\u201cconfidence in the US\u201d as seen from the Indo-Pacific, particularly from Japan’s perspective, while consciously distinguishing between Japan’s mass media\/researchers, and government officials \u2013 and between the US government in general and the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Typical criticism of the US in Japan<\/p>\n

Winning a war requires a clear strategy, appropriate tactics, a just cause and trustworthy allies. If a country wages war in this manner, its allies’ trust in that country will remain unshaken. However, the current war with Iran lacks three of these four elements \u2013 strategy, a just cause, and allies \u2013 leaving only appropriate tactics, namely the powerful American military force. It is only natural that this war would fail to yield results.<\/p>\n

Sure enough, confidence in the United States is rapidly declining among Japanese media and researchers.<\/p>\n

In public opinion polls conducted by major Japanese media outlets from March to April, the percentage of respondents who\u201cdo not support\u201d the attacks by the United States and Israel reached 75% to 86%. Moreover, the criticism is harsher than before. There is strong criticism of Mr. Trump’s\u201cunilateral declaration of war,\u201d and since the attack was forced through without international consensus or clear evidence of nuclear development, many are questioning the United States’ qualifications as a\u201cleader safeguarding the international order.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, the primary reason for this is that the prolonged war has directly impacted the lives of ordinary people. As Japan’s economic losses materialize \u2013 including soaring crude oil and electricity prices due to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, as well as the sharp decline in stock prices and the value of the yen \u2013 criticism is mounting that American unilateral military actions are harming Japan’s national interests. However, these criticisms are not limited to Japan; they are likely shared across the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

MENAFN11052026000159011032ID1111098055<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(MENAFN– Asia Times) Originally published by Pacific Forum, this article is republished with permission. The war on Iran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-20789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tokyo","8":"tag-japan","9":"tag-tokyo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}