Tony Abbott says Australia’s involvement in Islamic State attacks over Syria would be limited

TONY Abbott says any Australian attack on Islamic State would have limits.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott arrives at RAAF Darwin aboard a blackhawk helicopter along with federal member for Solomon Natasha Griggs after undergoing a tour during military exercise Talisman Sabre in the Northern Territory.

AUSTRALIAN air strikes in Syria would have the limited aim of disrupting Islamic State butchery and would not grow into an invasion, repeating the mistakes of the 2003 Iraq offensive. Prime Minister Tony Abbott today outlined the limits as he repeated his insistence that any deployment of the RAAF would be in response to a direct invitation from US President Barack Obama.

And he laid down the further restriction that nothing would be done without the co-operation of Mideast and Western allies.

The Prime Minister will be encouraged to take up the Obama invitation in a speech tonight by former Labor foreign minister Gareth Evans.

Prof Evans has warned against a full offensive “trying to drain the Middle East swamps through military action” but endorsed humanitarian moves to protect Syrians from Islamic State atrocities.

He is expected to tell a Sydney University Law School audience Australia’s intervention could be for national security reasons but also to be “doing the right thing simply because it is the right thing”.

“I have long argued that instead of thinking of national interests in just the two bundles of security and prosperity, we need to think in terms of every country having a third national interest ... that in being, and being seen to be, a good international citizen,” he is expected to say.

Tony Abbott, who will formally announce a decision in a few weeks, today said any Australian commitment would be with allied forces.

“What we want to do is to disrupt, degrade and destroy this death cult,” Mr Abbott told the Nine network.

Former foreign minister and ANU Chancellor Gareth Evans, pictured with Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop, thinks Australia should go further.

“That’s what we want to do and we’re working in close cooperation with our allies and partners led by the United States and in all these things, American leadership is absolutely necessary.

“But Australia is a strong ally of the United States and will work with the US and with other allies like Britain, other European partners such as the Dutch and, of course, Middle Eastern partners such as the Jordanians, the Emirates and the Saudis.”

Prof Evans tonight will condemn foreign policymaking which “is wet-finger-in-the-air stuff, driven by domestic political priorities, paying more attention to opinion polls and focus groups”.

And he will urge Australia to become a good international citizen by taking action to promote our values.

Prof Evans will highlight what former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan used to describe as “problems without passports”: “Those which are by their nature beyond the capacity of any one state, however great and powerful, to individually solve.”

He recalls when he became minister he found “if good international behaviour was simply some kind of charitable impulse, that was an impulse that would often have difficulty surviving the rigours of domestic political debate”.

“Politics was a cynical, as well as bloody and dangerous, trade, often with very limited tolerance for embracing what could not be described in hard-headed national interest terms,” he recalls.

He is expected to say: “I wanted, in short, to somehow square the circle between realists and idealists by finding a way of making the point that idealism could in fact be realistic.

“And I have tried to do that by making the point, over and again, that there are two very hard-headed returns for a state being seen to be a good international citizen.

“First, enhancement of that state’s international reputation, is bound to work, over time, to its economic and security advantage: the Scandinavians, in particular have long understood this — think of squeaky-clean Sweden becoming one of the world’s biggest armaments

sellers.

“And second, getting the benefit of reciprocity: foreign policymakers are no more immune to ordinary human instincts than anyone else, and if I take your problems seriously, you are that much more likely to help me solve mine: my help for you today in solving your terrorism

problem or environmental problem or piracy problem might reasonably lead you to be willing to help solve my refugees problem tomorrow.”