In April 1953, defying the British, the Japanese petroleum tanker Nissho Maru left the port of Abadan in southern Iran, its hulls filled with crude oil. The owner of the tanker, Idemitsu, was one of only a handful of companies that dared buy Iranian oil in those days — two years earlier the Iranians had nationalized their oil industry, and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was fighting back.

The head of Idemitsu, a legendary industrialist named Sazo Idemitsu, did well — he paid the cash-strapped Iranians 30 percent less than market prices. But in standing by the Iranians he also gave Japan, just emerging from a devastating war and seven years of American occupation, a sense of pride. Though Idemitsu was rebuked by his own government, his action was highly popular in both countries.

In a small former warehouse in the port city of Moji, on the island of Kyushu where Idemitsu was born, the company bearing his name has a display showing, among other things, photos and film footage of the Nissho Maru incident. Among them are black and white images of Iranians cheering as they see the tanker off in Abadan and beaming Japanese greeting its arrival with great fanfare in Japan.

…The time has come for Japan to use its prestige with the Iranians to search for a peaceful resolution to Iran’s internal turmoil. Tokyo should do so in the understanding that the nuclear issue swirling around Tehran is, at least in part, an attempt by the regime to contain its domestic problems. To deal with one without addressing the other is self-defeating.