Gillard moves Labor closer to Obama
THE PM takes a strong stand on Australia's role in Afghanistan.
THE Afghanistan debate has finished in a tougher-than-expected stand by Julia Gillard, a renewed bipartisanship to the commitment and no concessions to the bevy of critics, left and right, among the Greens, retired heavies and academic experts.
This week Gillard made Afghanistan her war and Barack Obama her special ally, a few days after former foreign minister Alexander Downer called for a new approach based on diplomacy and political negotiations.
Yes, Gillard is to Downer's right on the war. "Australia will not abandon Afghanistan," she told the parliament in a statement that revealed more about Gillard than it did about that country.
She backed the Australian training mission for a two to four-year period, declared that Australia's task in some form would last through the coming decade, endorsed more aggressive tactics against the insurgency, accepted the reality of more casualties, pledged an annual statement on the war and acknowledged her responsibility as Prime Minister to help hold public opinion to the commitment. Indeed, Gillard's tone was firmer than that of Kevin Rudd when he occupied the highest office although Rudd, as Foreign Minister, provided the best case for the war in this week's speeches.
But Gillard was left struggling in critical areas; she failed to confront fully the mission's transition in objectives from defeating al-Qa'ida to denying a Taliban coup; she was weak in integrating the idea of a political settlement into her hardline stand; and she did not address the decisive role of Pakistan in this regional crisis.
Yet Gillard has sent a series of messages in her Afghanistan statement. She will be tough on terrorism and regimes that back terrorism. Originating in Labor's left wing, Gillard's speech had the toughness of a right-wing, Kim Beazley-type approach. The Obama administration will give her full marks and Gillard has signalled, again, her fidelity to the US alliance and her respect for Obama and his commander, David Petraeus. This speech shows her determination to establish her own national security credentials as Prime Minister.
She seemed to thrive in accentuating her differences with the Greens. As the Greens made their call for withdrawal, Gillard backed the targeting of the insurgents' networks by Australian forces in Oruzgan province, even declaring "they will make a difference to the outcome of the war".
She was anxious to tell the Australian public that far from quitting, our engagement would endure through the coming decade. Gillard grasps the single most important quality for an Australian prime minister is strength. Operating in the institutional weakness of minority government, she will take whatever chance arises to show her executive strength.
This is one reason among many why the Greens have no hope with their latest bill, foreshadowed in the debate, to make any Australian overseas troop deployment conditional on approval by the parliament. There is hardly a more important power residing with the executive. The Labor and Liberal parties believe that decisions about war or peace properly reside in the executive and potentially outsourcing this power to the Greens or independents in the Senate risks the national interest.
The truth is that no prime minister, Labor or Liberal, will surrender this power. Its location within the executive has deep ties to Australia's cultural, military and political history as well as its future strategic interest.
Note that in February this year the Senate foreign affairs, defence and trade legislation committee examined an earlier bill along these lines, making just one lethal majority recommendation: "that the bill not proceed".
Gillard's speech reveals she operates in the long and justified Australian tradition of supporting US-led coalitions. This is a 47-nation-strong coalition in Afghanistan totalling 120,000 troops including 80,000 Americans, 10,000 Brits, 4500 Germans, 4000 French, 3500 Italians, 2500 from Canada and Poland, and 1500 from Australia. Several Muslim nations are involved, notably Turkey, Malaysia and Jordan. As Rudd said, the international force was authorised by the UN Security Council in December 2001, a resolution renewed on 10 occasions, and Australia's initial involvement followed the invoking of the ANZUS Treaty and falls under the umbrella of the US alliance.
Dismissing doubts about the basis of Australia's involvement, Rudd said it united "the full moral legitimacy of the UN system with the enduring commitment Australia has under the US alliance".
In her speech Gillard argued Australia was in Afghanistan on strategic merit and because of the US alliance. The strategic argument was "to make sure that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for terrorists", a claim attacked by critics on the grounds that al-Qa'ida had easily relocated to other regions.
In rebuttal, Rudd pointed out that Afghanistan was part of a global struggle. He said: "The truth is that our continued operations in Afghanistan against the Taliban, to deny the return of al-Qa'ida and its allies to Afghanistan, combined with co-ordinated counter-terrorism operations around the world, have helped in preventing the repetition of a series of large-scale, September 11 type attacks."
Premature international withdrawal would weaken the Afghan government, boost the risk of Afghanistan reverting to a terrorist location and ruin the prospects of the Afghan people. The Karzai government had "a number of failings" but the Taliban was "infinitely worse".
Claims that Labor gave the US a "blank cheque" were wrong; witness Iraq, where Labor opposed the war. For Rudd, the core principle at stake was that of "defending an international system based on collective security", a core Labor aspiration. He said negotiation and reconciliation was another arm to the strategy. But talks with the Taliban must come from a position of military strength, not weakness.
The pivotal Gillard-Rudd assumption is that Obama's troop surge invests the Afghan National Army and Karzai government with a chance to stabilise the country. Many critics doubt this; some insist it is folly. Can you wait out the Taliban?
After her visit, Gillard was "cautiously encouraged" by events in Oruzgan and Afghanistan overall. Her resolution offers only one interpretation: she must believe that Obama will stick for a longer haul than many think and she is betting on the Petraeus strategy. Such Gillard optimism may return to haunt her. There is no doubt: Gillard has tied herself to Obama much tighter than many expected.
Significantly, Gillard said Australia's national interest did not end with the 2014 transition to the Afghan government taking lead responsibility. Beyond this deadline Australia would still have "a role for training and other defence co-operation". Clearly, she is listening to the generals and military chiefs. This is their mantra; it is the logic beneath her reference to being involved "through this decade at least".
This statement guarantees Gillard will become an active foreign policy PM. She has a diplomatic and military position to defend and promote.
Tony Abbott's speech, more eloquent than those of Gillard or Rudd, was governed by Abbott's vision of a global ideological struggle waged by violent jihadists and his idealism about the uses of Western power.
This invests Abbott with a clear yet contentious interpretation of the conflict. For him, the West is not imposing a foreign government but saving Afghans from Taliban dictates. This is a war against "violent manifestations of a pernicious ideology". Our soldiers are heroes, both warriors and peacemakers. Progress comes family by family, village by village. Afghanistan may never become a Western-style democracy but that is not the point; the mission is better governance and denying the terrorists. An enduring Afghan commitment "seems hard to entertain" but it may be no more improbable than Britain's 12-year campaign in the Malayan emergency.
For Abbott, a regional meltdown would damage Western interests far more than "an indefinite military commitment". It would be impossible to advocate an Australian withdrawal without advocating the departure of Western forces and this would constitute the collapse of the current position with grave risk for Afghanistan and Pakistan and threats of greater terrorism and Islamist takeover.
Abbott said bipartisan support did not mean nothing could be improved. He will seek to keep Gillard under pressure from the Right, yet Gillard has moved towards the Right. It reminds again, that Julia and Tony, personality opposites, often finish not too far apart.
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