If US officials had been hoping to quell anti-base sentiment in Japan, the arrival in the country this week of the first shipment of Osprey transport aircraft could not have been worse timed.
The tilt-rotor aircraft are soon to replace aging CH-46 helicopters at Futenma, a marine corps base on the island of Okinawa that has come to symbolize Washington's struggle to reconcile security with public opinion overseas.
Under a bilateral agreement reached in 2006, Futenma, located in the middle of a densely populated city, was to have been moved to Nago, a more secluded location on the island's coast, only for the move to fail amid opposition from people living near the proposed new site.
Having failed to find an alternative location, officials in Japan and the US have had to concede defeat. The Futenma base will stay put, at least for the time being.
No one is happy with the diplomatic fudge that followed. Not the people of Nago, who still fear their unspoiled coastline will eventually make way for a new runway; not the Pentagon, which sees the relocation as essential to its troop realignment plans; and not the Japanese government, now stranded in a political limbo between its chief ally and disgruntled voters at home.
