James Morrow opinion: Albanese doesn’t get foreign policy, which is why he’s lucky Trump meeting was pulled
Had Anthony Albanese met with Donald Trump, it could have gone pear shaped. But the bigger worry is that Labor still doesn’t get it when it comes to our dangerous world, writes James Morrow.
Foreign policy has never been Anthony Albanese’s strong suit.
So, in a sense, the prime minister got a bit of a “get out jail free” card when US president Donald Trump decided to leave the G-7 summit in Canada early to head back to Washington, in the process zeroing out any chance of a face-to-face between the two men this week.
Had the meeting occurred, it could have gone pear shaped in any number of ways.
Trump could very easily have started a beef with the PM over everything from Australia’s cancelling of Israeli visitors visas while letting in 3000 Gazan refugees as tourists to our defence budget, which falls well short of the three to three and a half per cent of GDP Washington is asking of allies.
While the prime minister would have had good cause to stick up for our biosecurity rules protecting Australian beef producers, he would have been on far weaker ground if Trump decided to bring up Australia’s censorship of the internet in the name of protecting citizens from “misinformation”.
But the overwhelming danger for Albanese, and by extension the Australia he leads, is goes beyond just the threat of a bad meeting with the president.
The problem is deeper, and it is this: Quite simply, when it comes to the world historical moment we are in, the prime minister and his Labor ministers simply don’t get it.
Not to sound bleak, but a new Cold War is shaping up between the world’s free countries and authoritarian dictatorships. It’s not World War III yet, but pieces are already being moved around the board.
And for all the lip service Albanese pays to “democracy” it is not clear he gets what is at stake.
Think about it.
At this moment Israel is locked in a struggle with Iran, which according to international monitors had recently started revving up its uranium enrichment program – presumably, in preparation for finalising its plans to acquire nukes.
The US, while as of this writing not providing direct aid in the form of B-2 jets with their bunker busting bombs, has essentially backed Israel in and not put any fetters on the operation short of calling time on a plan to target “supreme leader” Ayatollah Khamenei.
Yet what is the best that the Albanese Labor government has been able to offer?
Calls for de-escalation and restraint.
On Sunday, foreign minister Penny Wong told the ABC: “we urge de-escalation, we urge restraint, we urge dialogue and diplomacy”.
Later, at the G-7 after his meeting with his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney, Albanese said that the pair “both … share a view, wanting to see a de-escalation of conflict. Wanting to prioritise dialogue and diplomacy.”
Which is a lovely if reflexive sentiment, but the horse has well and truly bolted on this.
Albanese in particular and Labor more broadly fails to understand three key things playing out right now between Israel and Iran.
One, Israel has only got one shot at defanging Iran, and they are not going to let up until they absolutely have to.
Two, Israel is right to so.
Anyone who thinks that this is a “both sides have a point” sort of issue have missed the past fifty years of history.
The mad mullahs who took over Iran in a bloody coup 45 years ago and set up a vicious, woman-hating theocracy that makes the Handmaid’s Tale look like a tea party are not the good guys.
They see Israel as “the Little Satan” and the US as “the Great Satan” and want to acquire nukes to threaten or deal with them accordingly.
They are also Shi’ite Muslims, which means they are no great fan of their Sunni Arab neighbours around the Gulf, which is why countries like Jordan and Saudi Arabia have barely said a peep about Israel’s move on Iran (and, in various ways, have quietly helped them along).
Not to put too fine a point on it, but there is no sense in which the Tehran regime is the good guys or the victims. They brought this on themselves and failed to make a deal with the West over their nukes.
Which bring us to the third point.
This new cold war has every potential to turn hot, and if Western nations like Australia equivocate when Israel tries to forcibly put down the threat of Iran, it means that others like Chinese supremo Xi Jinping will be all the more tempted to try their hand in, say, Taiwan.
If and when that happens, it won’t be enough to call on both sides to cool it.
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Originally published as James Morrow opinion: Albanese doesn’t get foreign policy, which is why he’s lucky Trump meeting was pulled
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