When Australia became the first country in the world to support Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s war with Iran, the Albanese government didn’t even know the reason for the war, let alone whether it was lawful – but they supported it anyway.
Late on Saturday night, as Israel and the US launched the unprovoked bombing of 500 targets across Iran, the rest of the Western world waited to see exactly what Trump and Netanyahu had unleashed. But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles issued a confused and hasty statement supporting the war before they even knew what it was.
“We support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security,” they said.
Even as the statement went public, it was emerging that a girls school in Iran had been bombed by Israel and the United States – the death toll from that bombing alone now stands at 153. Today, death and destruction is raining down on nine countries across the Middle East, all because Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu began this war.
That is exactly why, when US allies like the UK’s Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Schultz eventually made their first public comments, they did not say they supported this war.
“The outbreak of war between the United States, Israel, and Iran carries grave consequences for international peace and security,” said French President Macron, telling the French public that he was left in the dark about the US and Israel’s attack.
"France was neither informed nor involved."
Osman Faruqi
Australia was, and remains, a pariah in supporting Trump and Netanyahu’s actions.
It took until Monday morning, after two days of bombing, for the Albanese government to offer any detailed explanation of their stance or for them to honestly disclose how little they actually knew.
Under questioning in an ABC interview, Foreign Minister Penny Wong admitted that, like Macron, the Albanese government had no idea what the Israeli and the US attack was about. They’d given Australia's support for a war blindly.
“We're obviously not party to the intelligence that both the United States and the Israelis are referencing in their decisions,” she said. “That is why it is for them to explain the legal basis of this.”
If Australia will support a war without knowing the reason or legal basis for it, it calls into question whether we have any independent foreign policy decision-making, even compared to other American allies, or whether the official policy of the Albanese government is to simply support any war Donald Trump decides to launch. No evidence, logic or lawfulness necessary.
