He's willing to exert alot of muscle to do so.
I imagine the ME rulers are happy to have Japan deflect much of the spotlight from their popular uprisings.
It would not be in America's best interests for "democratic" governments to arise in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Libya or Egypt, Yemen, anywhere else they're protesting and I missed. Otherwise we're going to end up facing a bunch of fundamentalist loonies like we already do in Iran. JMO.