Iran and Israel are fighting a war that nobody can win. Japan has learned this lesson before.

    TOKYO — From this side of the globe, watching the Middle East spiral into what is now the 39th day of open warfare feels like witnessing a slow-moving policy disaster unfold in real time. The patterns are familiar: the escalation of strikes, the retaliatory barrages, the diplomatic overtures that go nowhere, and the steady, grinding human toll that the world has learned to glance away from. But what began on February 28 of this year — when the United States and Israel launched a coordinated offensive against Iran, triggering the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and a cycle of retaliatory strikes — has since metastasized into a regional conflagration with no obvious off-ramp.

    In early April, Iran struck back hard. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) launched more than 100 heavy missiles and attack drones, alongside 200 rockets, in a single wave, targeting what it called American and Zionist positions across the occupied territories. On April 6, Israel retaliated with a large-scale airstrike on three airports in Tehran and struck Iran’s Sharif University of Technology. By mid-April, Iranian strikes had forced some five million Israeli residents into shelters. On the Iranian side, at least 3,468 people had been killed by late April, roughly 40 percent of them civilians. In Israel, 19 had been killed since the conflict began, according to Israeli government figures. The Strait of Hormuz had been effectively closed, sending oil prices surging and pushing the global energy system into its most severe disruption in half a century.

    From a distance, the war looks like a series of provocations and reprisals, each side insisting on its own narrative of self-defense. But from this vantage point in Tokyo — a nation that has lived through war’s devastation, enshrined pacifism in its Constitution, yet depends for nearly 90 percent of its energy on a volatile Middle East — the crisis reveals a deeper truth about the present international order. It is an order without grown-ups in the room. The United Nations Security Council remains paralyzed, unable to agree on any joint action, with sharp divisions leaving the Council silent as the fighting spreads. The United States, for its part, has shown itself increasingly willing to bypass multilateral institutions and act unilaterally — or bilaterally with Israel. Meanwhile, Iran, under a new Supreme Leader after the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has demonstrated a capacity for sustained retaliation that has exhausted Israeli air defense stockpiles and forced Israel to ration its most advanced missile interceptors.

    The Costs of a Strategy Without Exit

    No one wins this war. Not Israel, whose Iron Dome — the very symbol of its defensive prowess — has been stretched to its limits, allowing more missiles to slip through. Not the United States, which is now entangled in a conflict that has already killed thousands of civilians and drawn international condemnation from more than 100 international law experts. Not Iran, which has seen its infrastructure shattered, its universities bombed, and its economy strangled by a U.S. naval blockade. And certainly not the broader international community, which is now watching oil prices soar past $100 a barrel and supply chains buckle under the pressure.

    What is particularly striking from Tokyo is how quickly the war has exposed the hollowness of great-power diplomacy. The negotiations mediated by Pakistan in Islamabad in April produced a two-week ceasefire but failed to yield a lasting agreement. U.S. Vice President JD Vance departed Islamabad after delivering what he called the “final and best offer.” Iran rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal tied to reopening the Strait of Hormuz, demanding instead a permanent end to the war, sanctions relief, and compensation. The posturing on both sides has been breathtaking — and the civilians caught in between have paid the price.

    But perhaps the most alarming signal from this conflict is the extent to which the United States has outsourced its Middle East decision-making to Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly stated that the Trump administration provides him with daily updates on negotiations with Iran — a revelation that drew sharp criticism even from U.S. lawmakers. “The Trump administration daily reports to Netanyahu on the Iranian war, but not Congress or the American people,” wrote Democratic Congressman Mark Pocan. If true, this would mark an extraordinary inversion of the normal alliance relationship, suggesting that Washington has effectively ceded strategic direction to Jerusalem. For an ally in Asia watching closely, this raises troubling questions about the reliability of U.S. strategic judgment.

    Japan’s Precarious Position

    For Japan, the conflict presents an excruciating dilemma. As a key U.S. ally in Asia, Tokyo is expected to support Washington’s strategic objectives. Yet Japan has carefully avoided any clear endorsement of the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran. The reasons are threefold and deeply rooted.

    First, Japan’s pacifist Constitution severely restricts the deployment of military force abroad. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has explicitly stated that Japan has no plans to deploy military forces to the Strait of Hormuz, rejecting U.S. calls for mine-clearing operations.

    Second, Japan imports up to 90 percent of its energy from the Middle East. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has already forced Tokyo to begin releasing oil reserves and scrambling for alternative supplies. Prolonged conflict would be economically catastrophic for a nation that has spent decades building an energy-dependent industrial base.

    Third — and this is where the Japanese perspective perhaps offers something useful — Japan has traditionally maintained cordial relations with both the United States and Iran. That balanced diplomacy is now under immense strain. Polls show that more than 75 percent of Japanese citizens oppose the U.S.-Israeli aggression against Iran. Domestic public opinion, constitutional constraints, and economic self-interest have all aligned to push Tokyo toward a position of diplomatic restraint rather than military involvement.

    To its credit, Japan has attempted to channel its discomfort into constructive action. In March, the Foreign Ministry established a new international peace mediation unit, designed to “further strengthen its active and flexible engagement in peace mediation efforts.” Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu has repeatedly called for dialogue between the United States and Iran, urging Tehran to stop actions that destabilize the region while also voicing concern over Israel’s military actions toward neighboring countries.

    The Lessons of the Pacific

    From the Japanese perspective, there is a bitter irony in watching two U.S. allies — Japan in Asia and Israel in the Middle East — navigate very different strategic relationships with Washington. Japan has learned, through decades of postwar experience, that military solutions to political problems rarely produce lasting stability. The pacifism enshrined in Article 9 is not merely a constitutional quirk; it is a hard-won lesson from the catastrophe of the Pacific War.

    What the Middle East needs now is not more firepower but more patient diplomacy — the kind that Japan has attempted to practice, with varying degrees of success, in its own region. The path out of this crisis requires the United States to reengage with multilateral institutions, for Israel and Iran to accept that neither can achieve a decisive military victory, and for the international community to apply sustained pressure for a comprehensive ceasefire that addresses the underlying grievances on both sides.

    But none of this will happen without political will. And political will is what has been conspicuously absent since February 28. The war has now dragged on for well over a month, with no end in sight. The Iranian Supreme Leader has declared victory and announced a “new phase” in the management of the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened further military action if Tehran does not comply with American demands. The rhetoric escalates; the bodies pile up; and the world watches, paralyzed.

    A Plea for Restraint

    From Tokyo, the message to Washington and Jerusalem — and to Tehran — is simple: stop. Not because the grievances are not real. Not because there are no legitimate security concerns on any side. But because war is not solving them. The missile barrages have not broken Iran’s will to resist. The retaliation has not restored Israel’s sense of security. The closed strait has not brought anyone to the negotiating table on favorable terms.

    What war has done is to kill thousands of civilians, displace countless families, destabilize the global economy, and deepen the mistrust that makes genuine peace negotiations impossible. After 39 days of bloodshed, no one is closer to victory than when this began — but everyone is poorer, more embittered, and further from a political settlement.

    Japan cannot solve this conflict. Its constitutional constraints and limited military capacity ensure that. But Japan can offer a perspective that is increasingly rare in this crisis: the voice of a nation that has chosen restraint, that has prioritized economic interdependence over military confrontation, and that understands — perhaps better than most — the irreplaceable value of peace.

    Whether Washington is listening is another matter entirely. But as the war enters its second month with no off-ramp in sight, the Japanese example of patient diplomacy looks less like naïveté and more like the only sensible path forward. The world cannot afford to wait for the next round of strikes to realize that.