LOS ANGELES -- Quality political leadership is so frequently conspicuous by its absence that even the slightest whiff of its sudden presence can electrify a political region. Is Japan finally experiencing the dynamic quality leadership it deserves? That's the question intriguing Asia.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is now the toast of Tokyo -- and a rising international political star. To be sure, the current Japanese exuberance over the new government of the "personality-plus" Koizumi could well prove to be every bit as irrational as the utter dismissal of Keizo "cold pizza" Obuchi days after he took office two years ago. And while the latter turned out to be Japan's most effective prime minister in years, the former has yet to prove he isn't the biggest political bust since the disastrous reform administration of Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa in 1993.
Can Koizumi succeed? Maybe. For starters, he has luck on his side -- the good fortune to succeed the most scoffed-at Japanese prime minister in recent memory. And timing is everything: The Japanese polity suddenly seems ready for reform.