Fifteen and a half years after our enthusiastic support for the US-led military intervention in Iraq, we’re going back again. This time it’s with a ship, a plane and a couple of hundred personnel to join another coalition of the willing, this time Donald Trump and Boris Johnson’s armada targeting Iran.
Various names are being floated as other possible participants in the latest Coalition, without, one hopes, the embarrassment of being added by mistake. Of course, as the “forever war” dictates, we never really ended the Iraq venture. We’ve been training or bombing in Iraq ever since. We’ve spent over $1.3 billion since 2014 going after the direct result of our Iraq intervention, Islamic State — with the occasional, and of course highly regrettable, deaths of innocents.
Given the last venture spawned a new generation of terrorists, a short-lived terrorist state, a wave of attacks in Western and developing countries that cost hundreds of lives, dramatically strengthened the role of the Iranian regime in the region and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis — it was only in 2013 that life expectancy for Iraqis returned to Saddam-era levels — not to mention costing trillions of dollars, the lack of reflection about the unintended consequences of another military intervention is remarkable.
Labor, under Simon Crean, had the fortitude to oppose the Iraq debacle from the outset; 2019 vintage Labor, having apparently decided the whole business of being an opposition is too hard, is on board from the outset, leaving only the Greens to oppose it and Centre Alliance’s Rex Patrick to point out that it “amounts to a blank cheque for Australian entanglement in any war with Iran”. Parliament is in recess so the commitment won’t even be debated.
In the absence here of a genuine diversity of informed conservative viewpoints of the kind that distinguishes commentary in the United States, it’s easy to fall into the trap of seeing Australia’s participation in another military venture through an ideological and partisan lens: that opposition to participating in Trump’s armada must be the province of the far left and adherents of anti-Americanism.
In fact, the strongest arguments against Australia joining yet another Middle East intervention are conservative ones:
- The US has caused the problem the armada is ostensibly designed to solve by abandoning an international agreement. Iran was in full compliance with the JCPOA until Trump, at the behest of a far-right Israeli government (with which the US is now training for Gulf military operations), walked away from the agreement and imposed draconian sanctions. Our participation in the armada rewards rule-breaking and violating international norms.
- The armada will escalate tensions and the likelihood of conflict, not — as Scott Morrison risibly claims — “de-escalate” them. Iran will be confronted with a fleet of vessels targeting it. More ships, more planes, more drones, more personnel will be crammed into an already tense region. Given the agenda of key Trump adviser John Bolton is conflict with Iran, the armada increases the likelihood that an “accident” or provocation leads to outright conflict.
- The armada will further strengthen the hand of Iranian hardliners who can point to yet another sign of Western aggression, at a time when US sanctions are killing children and impoverishing ordinary Iranians. Tehran hardliners and Washington hardliners like Bolton and Mike Pompeo have an alliance of interests in pushing each other closer and closer to conflict.
- It will increase the risk of terrorism aimed at Australians given it demonstrates — yet again — Australia’s willingness to participate in US military interventions aimed against Islamic countries. Our failure to condemn Trump’s lethal sanctions also reinforces the perception that Australia has a particular hostility to Muslim people in the Middle East.
- Far from keeping oil prices down, the armada, in the event if leads to a conflict with Iran, will see oil prices go as high as $150 a barrel, smashing Asian economies and slugging world growth. Claims that the armada was about keeping the sea lanes open so oil could flow might end up looking as foolish as Rupert Murdoch’s prediction the Iraq war would deliver $20 a barrel oil.
- As one ASPI critic noted, continuing to commit our limited military resources to US chest-beating in the Middle East is a distraction from our real priority: dealing with an aggressive China.
- It perpetuates the endless “War on Terror” that saddles Western economies and the US in particular with superfluous military expenditure, leading to higher taxes and protectionist defence industry policies and diverting resources and investment away from more productive uses in other sectors of the economy.
The strongest case against our infantile obsession with following the US into every misbegotten intervention is a conservative one, not a progressive or left-wing one. The silence on Australia’s latest venture from the right reflects poorly indeed on conservative intellectuals, or pretenders to that role.
Now, remind me, when did I last see the US, UK and Aust coalition go into an unsanctioned military adventure in the Middle East? Ah, that’s right, the Iraq debacle that left us with ISIS and ultimately the desolation we see of the Syrian people and lands seized by the so-callled caliphate. With Israel as the silent partner in this latest excursion of the three blundereers what could possibly go wrong this time around?
I can give you a little hint, as to what might go wrong, Richard.
This comes from Alistair Crooke, long time Brit diplomat in the ME – until he got the DCM for trying ‘too hard’ to do something concrete for the Palestinians. He founded and now runs the “Conflicts Forum” out of Beirut.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/08/19/the-deeper-meaning-in-lost-war/
“The Deeper Meaning in a Lost War”
The “Lost War”? That would be the House of Saud/UAE led, US, UK, and other ‘killin’ gear and services’ providers, including Australia, war on the Houthi and civilian population of Yemen.
And, Crooke’s not the only one to have so concluded. A week before Crooke’s piece, a 29 year CIA veteran, and now Brookings Institution ‘scholar’, Bruce Riedel, wrote;
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/08/saudi-arabia-yemen-setback-south-aden.html
“Riyadh faces new setback in south Yemen”
Between Riedel’s and Crooke’s efforts, the Houthi sent an armed drone (reverse engineered from one ‘captured’ in Iran, and ‘modified’ by Hisbollah, so that it’s hard to track, hack or generally fiddle with from afar) into Saudi Arabia, and struck oil facilities to significant effect.
Following that strike, the Iranians publicly (for the first time) pledged their support for the Houthi.
The significance of all that can be seen in Crooke’s detailing of shifts in allegiances and commitments between Gulf nations, AND within the Emirates.
And, the winners are?
Iran, the Shia Crescent (from Iran through Iraq and Syria, to Hisbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi.
The losers are obvious.
And, the ‘brains’ of winning outfit?
Qassem Soleimani. Even those doing the educating at West Point know it’s best to acknowledge an opponent of considerable capability;
https://ctc.usma.edu/qassem-soleimani-irans-unique-regional-strategy/
“Qassem Soleimani and Iran’s Unique Regional Strategy”
Australian Intelligence?
Where?
No money to raise Newstart or increase funding to our schools & hospitals…..but always plenty of money to participate in yet another pointless overseas conflict.
I agree with the arguments raised, but I wouldn’t classify myself as a ‘conservative’. Just why ARE those arguments ‘conservative’, Bernard. There is simply nothing presented here to show how these arguments against slavish subservience to the USA can’t be ‘progressive’ or ‘left-wing’, or just plain bloody sensible. Unless, reading between the lines, and knowing what we do of the writer’s proclivities, we should assume ‘left-wing’ arguments not to be sensible. So what are the ‘progressive’, ‘left-wing’ arguments, Bernard?
The far left at the beginning of this piece have morphed into the progressive and left-wing by the end and can thus be disregarded.
Who is the One True Conservative making the argument that no other conservative has? None other than BK himself exhibiting his usual journalism of the warm inner selfregard.
The trouble with being a contrarian is that you end up writing things that only an idiot or yourself would believe.
Our capacity to not learn from our mistakes and history per se astounds even frightens me. Who are these idiotic egoists masquerading as our “leaders”? Bernard your article is correct in every respect and pissant Labor is to be condemned for falling into line with this blatant and groundless warmongering against Iran by the US.
Our capacity to not learn from our mistakes and history per se astounds even frightens me. Who are these idiotic egoists masquerading as our “leaders”? Bernard your article is correct in every respect and pissant Labor is to be condemned for falling into line with this blatant and groundless warmongering against Iran by the US.