Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who earlier this year described Japan as both our “best friend in Asia” and a “strong ally,” has warmly embraced the “special relationship” language. He consummated the love-in by expressing his admiration for “the skill and sense of honor” of the Japanese submariners who died attacking Sydney Harbor in 1942, while saying of Japan’s waging of aggressive war and wartime atrocities only that “we disagreed with what they did.”