Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong have devalued Australia as an alliance partner to the US in a pattern of behaviour that also has diminished our standing as a nation prepared to stand up strongly for the values of freedom and democracy.
It was easy for Donald Trump to dismiss a meeting with an Australian Prime Minister who would have brought little to the table except miserly defence spending and special pleading on tariffs.
The US relationship is unlikely to be undermined for the long term – it is deep enough, and our shared interests clear enough, to transcend the comings and goings of governments and leaders – but for now Albanese and Wong have made us less useful, less important and therefore less relevant. That is the real lesson of the Prime Minister’s Canadian snub, which no doubt will be rectified with a cordial catch-up at some stage.
Albanese and Wong have shrunken Australia’s international posture, turned a significant player in global diplomacy into a curled-up nation looking to throw its lot in with the likes of Canada and New Zealand to blend in with the crowd at the UN. When the world is finally confronting the strategic threat of Iran, after it has been hanging over Israel, the Middle East and European democracies for decades, Australia could be a formidable diplomatic voice – but we are not.
After Israel’s long-speculated attack on Iran, and the Islamic Republic’s retaliation with drones and missiles targeting urban areas in Israel, and the US supporting Israel’s action and mulling intervention itself, Australia had four-fifths of bugger all to say for five days. “We urge de-escalation, we urge restraint, we urge dialogue and diplomacy,” Wong told the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday.
Wong said this was the position put by many countries, “not only to the Iranians but also to the Israelis”. This reeked of false equivalence and represented an appalling retreat from strategic and moral reality.
It was not for a full six days, and after criticism of her stand, that Wong offered limp admonishment of Iran. On Wednesday she told Sky News: “The fastest way out of the danger that the world sees … is for Iran to come to the table and to stop any nuclear weapons program.”
Albanese has been even weaker, and there is nothing either of them has said that could be interpreted as overt support for Israel or even as support for the US in assisting Israel.
Perish the thought we should support liberal democracies protecting the world from a rogue theocracy intent on the nuclear annihilation of a sovereign state.
This weak and amoral response renders Australia irrelevant. Australia’s longest serving foreign minister, Alexander Downer, told me this week on Sky News that Wong and Albanese were “humiliating our country with these sorts of words … It is worse than embarrassing, I find it humiliating.”
While not a major player in the Middle East, Australia is uniquely positioned as an alliance partner with the US and ally with Israel that retains diplomatic relations with Iran through an embassy in Tehran.
Given the hostile, anti-Israeli nature of much global debate, our voice in support of Israel and the US would have been valued in Jerusalem and Washington.
This would have been a bonus for doing the right thing. Considering all strategic and moral dimensions, support for Israel against the terrorist proxies of Iran, its direct attacks on Israel and its pursuit of nuclear weapons is a no-brainer. The alternative does not bear thinking about.
Yet after more than 20 months of demonising Israel (making unfounded claims against its Gazan war effort, demanding Israel end its war against Hamas, rejecting visas for a former minister and respected Israeli commentators, sanctioning two government ministers, voting against Israel at the UN and not even condemning the outrageous warrants from the International Criminal Court against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant), the Albanese government could not refocus and deal in the strategic and moral reality. So now it watches on from the sidelines as nay-sayers while events unfold that could deliver the most significant improvement in global peace and security in decades.
Our diplomacy has been like a shiver looking for a spine to run up. And Albanese wonders why the US President did not have time for a quick meeting or phone call.
Iran’s sponsoring of terrorism has troubled the Middle East and Western interests for almost 50 years since the Islamic Revolution. And across the past two decades the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons aspirations have been a constant and escalating concern, despite efforts by the UN, Europeans and Americans to rein them in with agreements, sanctions and threats.
This was already a strong and concerning undercurrent when I worked for Downer two decades ago, visiting the region regularly, including Tehran. Experiencing the sophistication of Iranian society along with the draconian social measures and palpable intimidation of the population, while meeting their dour, extremist leadership, was an extraordinary experience.
In those days Iran had been assigned by George W. Bush to the “axis of evil” along with Iraq and North Korea. We visited them all.
To see what North Korea could be with freedom you only have to look south across the 38th parallel; Iraq’s potential post-Saddam Hussein is obvious, held back by terrorism and the Sunni-Shia divide; while Iran’s Persian endowment and modern incarnation are still there, suppressed under a medieval theocratic dictatorship.
Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Arab Gulf states have long been almost as exercised about Iran as Israel has been.
If the regime in Tehran is incapacitated or toppled, it will not only be Israel that can embrace a less ominous future. Lebanon and Syria would be able to rebuild governing structures with less manipulation from the Iranian catspaw of Hezbollah. Gaza could be more easily resolved with funding, supplies and edicts from Iran to Hamas cut off; likewise with the Houthis in Yemen.
Barack Obama claimed to have solved the Iran nuclear problem a decade ago (just like he claimed to have cooled the planet) resulting in Iran gaining access to more than $US100bn in frozen assets. Tehran also took $US1.7bn in payments from the US in exchange for these undertakings and the return of US hostages.
And yet here we are, with conflict under way. Iran continued with its nuclear program regardless.
Yet Wong and Albanese still talk about dialogue, diplomacy and de-escalation. That Australia would not have strong views about the opportunity to eliminate this nuclear threat once and for all defies comprehension.
The moral dimension overlaps with the strategic. In just the past 20 months, Iran has funded and enabled the Hamas atrocities against Israel; funded and co-ordinated the Hezbollah attacks on Israel from the north; funded and directed the Houthi missile attacks on Israel from Yemen; and directly attacked Israel with missiles and drones.
Even in the current conflict Iran has responded to Israel’s highly targeted attacks on Iranian military and strategic targets with missile assaults on Israel’s urban centres to kill and maim civilians. This week it hit a hospital – yet there is less international outrage than Israel received when it was falsely accused of bombing a hospital in Gaza.
The Iranian regime uses “morality police” to arrest women for failing to wear veils, with 22-year-old Mahsa Amini infamously dying in police custody in 2022. Other young Iranians have been jailed for up to 10 years for daring to dance.
Human rights groups report that more than 340 Iranians have been executed in the first half of this year, many for drug offences but others for political crimes. Ethnic minorities are persecuted.
While all this has been going on, what have Albanese and Wong been doing? They have been demonising Israel.
For a politician who boasts about his love for “fighting Tories”, Albanese sure fails to take up the cudgels against murderous, intolerant and genocidal outfits and regimes. Maybe Albo would be more agitated if Hamas or Iran attacked collective bargaining.
Albanese, his cabinet members and his US ambassador, Kevin Rudd, have mocked and abused Trump through the years. And they have publicly scoffed at calls from his Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to increase their defence spending.
Yet for all this, a principled stand in the Middle East might have made them useful. Instead, they played to the anti-Israel protesters, Muslim voters in key electorates, the intolerant Greens and the anti-Israel, anti-US cohort at the UN.
The Albanese government has wantonly let down Israel and washed its hands of a defining moment in Middle East diplomacy. It also has let down the US just when we need to reinvest in that relationship. In doing so, it has let down Australia.
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