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It seems brutal, not to say narcissistic, to be asking what this attack on Iran means to Australia while bombs are still falling across the Middle East and kids are dying in the rubble of their primary school.

But, given the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese was the first and only one of two leaders to have -so far – come out in support of the US military action, saying, “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,” we need to ask what this attack could mean for Australia. Not tomorrow, but soon.

Because for the record, this is an illegal war

There are two immediate lessons for Australia to consider before the war gets even more complex. The first goes to what this tells us about what AUKUS does to us by making us a target and a first-strike destination, and the second is that the Prime Minister’s endorsement of this attack makes it clear he does not understand how advantaged Australia is by the international rule of law.

First, to the problem of putting Australia in the crosshair sights.

Right now, Iran has targeted the Gulf States of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar and elsewhere where the U.S. has military assets. As reported in Politico, the Trump administration disregarded pleas from these allies in the region in launching the attack on Iran. These countries did not want this war, and they were not consulted on it. But they are being targeted because they host US bases.

While the AUKUS deal was created in secret and is still shrouded in secrecy, what we now know about some of the detail makes it clear that if it is realised, Australia will become a first-strike destination in the event of a US/China conflict.

A 2024 Congressional report outlines when comparing the “potential benefits, costs, and risks” of the three stage AUKUS plan, that it might just be better for the US to operate more of its own boats out of WA. That is, “procuring up to eight additional Virginia-class SSNs that would be retained in US Navy service and operated out of Australia along with the US and UK SSNs”. That’s right, why bother with the whole step two and three when the US is best served by simply operating its nuclear-powered attack submarines out of WA?

As Albert Palazzo wrote recently in The Saturday Paper, AUKUS’s main game is not the provision of nuclear powered submarines to Australia, it is the base that Australia intends to give to the US at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia. This base may be on Australian soil, but its primary beneficiary will be the US, just as it is the US that disproportionately gains from the seemingly “joint” military facilities at Pine Gap and North West Cape.

With US listening stations across Australia and a large build up of both personnel and weapons on Australian soil we are playing host to infrastructure that is critical to the US from a military and intelligence point of. And China knows that.

As Palazzo argues, “Since the US bases are of great military importance, China would likely seek to destroy them in order to protect its own interests. Worse, China could safely employ nuclear weapons against Australia because the US would be unlikely to retaliate against such distant damage and risk the incineration of one of its own cities.”

Just ask the Gulf States how relevant their concerns are to a rogue White House intent on invasion.

Secondly, small nations, with pretentions of being a middle power, must understand how advantaged we are by adherence to the international rules-based order. This scaffolding has supported our ambitions in relation to open trade, and other norms to guide international cooperation, the articulation of universal rights and freedoms and the need for states to work cooperatively on global challenges, including climate change.

Supporting a man who has spent his time in power meticulously destroying that rules-based order makes no sense for Australia. Let alone standing alone on the world stage and applauding the illegal attack on Iran as Israeli bombs kill 80 little kids at school. Small countries like ours need laws to protect us from the rapacious ambitions of more powerful states.

The Iranian regime is a brutal and murderous regime, and everyone’s hope is that it will fall, and the will of the Iranian people will become law. But that hope does not make the US/Israel attack on Iran legal, moral or rational. Nor does it make Albanese support for this war legal, moral or strategic.

Finally, though it remains an unlikely request, should Donald Trump ask Anthony Albanese to send Australian advisors or troops into this war, the Prime Minister could take Australia to war based on nothing more than agreement between himself and Cabinet.

Until the turn of this century, the call-up of the Australian Defence Force reserve required Parliament to sit within ten days. That sensible condition was removed from the Defence Act without explanation by the Howard government in 2001.

Nor does it appear likely to change under the Albanese government. As Richard Marles argued in 2022, ‘[U]nder Australia’s Westminster system of government, decisions about the deployment of the ADF into international armed conflicts are within the prerogative powers of the Executive. I am firmly of the view that these arrangements are appropriate and should not be disturbed.’

We deserve better leadership than one that unthinkingly, sycophantically falls in behind a man intent on the pursuit of self-interest and endless aggrandisement. We deserve a leader intent of the defence of Australia, the rule of law and a place of moral authority in a time that grows darker be the day.

By Dr Julie Macken, Sydney Peace Foundation Board Member 

Image credit: Unsplash