A few minutes before Anthony Albanese took the stage in Canberra for a major speech about the war on Iran on Thursday, the world had just watched Donald Trump give a terrifying address from the White House.
Over a month into a war he chose to launch, Trump rambled and raved, without defining any clear objective, or clear reason for the war, and said he’d already won and it would be over soon, but also only when his “objectives are fully achieved”.
The world saw an unhinged man, high on memes of himself rendered by AI into a futuristic god emperor, spliced with footage of bombs being dropped, oblivious that the United States has lost the leverage to end the war on its terms. He is insulated from reality, risk and consequence and convinced he can bomb an entire country and its population “back to the stone age”, without facing any retaliation from an already decimated enemy.
In fact, Iran can launch as many missiles as ever and can likely make good on the retaliation it has promised: to wipe all Middle Eastern oilfields from the map and cause a global economic meltdown that would make today’s fuel shortage look like a sniffle.
It was in this context, Anthony Albanese went on stage at the National Press Club.
“We all know the mindset that left Australia exposed to this global shock,” Albanese said, taking a pause to collect himself before continuing.
Speaking just minutes after Trump, the answer did seem obvious: blind subservience to Washington.
“[The mentality] that said it was ok to cut TAFE and training,” Albanese said instead, before rattling off a list of Morrison-era Coalition policies.
Pointing the finger at the Scott Morrison bogeyman from four years ago was not just predictably uninspiring, it exposed how small Albanese has become.
“We cannot control when this conflict in the Middle East will end,” said Albanese.
The media unanimously believed Albanese’s plea of powerlessness and irrelevance in world affairs was made in good faith.
