The forced resignation of Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka says a lot about Japan's sloppy politics and its emotional inability to focus on the rights and wrongs of a dispute.
The dispute began with the foreign ministry arbitrarily ordering two key Japanese nongovernmental organizations not to attend the recent international conference on aid to Afghanistan. This order was made despite the fact that many other NGOs from Japan and around the world were attending.
Tanaka was not consulted about the exclusion order. When she discovered what had happened she immediately ordered her officials to withdraw the order, which they reluctantly did on the second and final day of the conference.