POINT OF VIEW/ Yasushi Watanabe: Hatoyama can help ties by visiting Pearl Harbor

When he visited Japan last November, U.S. President Barack Obama was asked whether he planned to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He replied that he "certainly would be honored ... to visit those two cities in the future." The exchange came during a joint news conference after his summit talks with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

During a visit to the White House in January, Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba invited Obama to visit Hiroshima. Akiba quoted Obama as replying, "I would like to come."

The political environment surrounding Obama at the moment is quite harsh. During his stay in Tokyo, Obama met with Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko at the Imperial Palace. It is still fresh in our minds that his deep bow to Emperor Akihito drew heavy criticism from former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. The conservative politician commented: "There is no reason for an American president to bow to anyone."

With that sort of thinking, a visit by Obama to Hiroshima and Nagasaki could trigger protests by American war veterans.

But we must not forget Obama's resolve to go out of his way to speak his mind, even if it invites criticism. His ultimate goal is "a world without nuclear weapons." He clearly has the will to strengthen the moral foundation of the Japan-U.S. alliance.

There is another point that is worth bearing in mind. Even among liberals, some Americans say the president should think twice about visiting the sites of the 1945 atomic bombings. In short, they question whether Japan has the determination to come face to face with its own war responsibility.

If Japan issued a formal invitation for the U.S. president to visit the two cities while maintaining a one-sided victim mentality, it would be hard for Americans to accept the request.

But if Hatoyama expressed a desire to visit Pearl Harbor, Japan might be able to get across its message to Americans that the visits would be beneficial to both countries. As a result, it could lower the hurdle for Obama to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Unfortunately, there is nothing to signal that this may happen.

The Obama team has the potential to be a good partner of the Hatoyama administration in many areas such as nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation; disaster prevention; medicine; public health; education; the environment; energy; aid for poor countries and intellectual property rights. In the modern world, each one of these issues has to do with national security in the broadest sense of the term. Accordingly, the concept of the Japan-U.S. alliance should be upgraded.

In 2008, Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, visited Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park and offered a wreath. That same year, Yohei Kono, then Lower House speaker, laid flowers at the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. If such gestures can be raised to the level of top leaders of the two countries, it would mark a new era in Japan-U.S. relations.

Since last fall, however, the Hatoyama administration has embarked on foreign policies initiatives that have caused concern to the Obama administration. They include the government's decision to discontinue refueling activities by the Maritime Self-Defense Force in the Indian Ocean, its proposed East Asian community and the review of an agreement to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture.

I get the impression that those policies were drawn up with no thought given to the domestic situation surrounding Obama.

Given this background, it would be difficult to establish a relationship of trust as partners even between two ordinary people, not to mention two nations.

I find it regrettable that the Japanese and U.S. governments have focused almost exclusively on the Futenma issue since the start of the new administrations on both sides of the Pacific.

In order to rebuild Japan-U.S. ties within a broad historical context and to answer Obama's determination, I strongly urge Hatoyama to consider a visit to Pearl Harbor.

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Yasushi Watanabe is a Keio University professor specializing in American studies.