Pressure mounts on Australia to distance itself from Iran war

Even as the war with Iran escalates and threatens global oil supplies and economic stability, critics argue Australia should distance itself from the conflict rather than risk deeper involvement, writes George Grundy.

HAVING SPENT $2 trillion over 20 years, replacing the Taliban with the Taliban, America’s glorious war machine has recently shown improved efficiency, this time taking just eight days to replace a Khamenei with another Khamenei.

The Persian Gulf is ablaze, both on land and water, as the winner of the FIFA Peace Prize drops bombs on schools and hospitals, hand-in-hand with a wanted war criminal. These are the darkest of times.

Three Republican presidents in a row have now followed the same playbook – crash the economy and invade a Middle Eastern country – but not even George W Bush’s catastrophic Iraq folly was as poorly planned as this. Any chance that military action against Iran could replicate January’s smash-and-grab raid on Venezuela was quickly extinguished when U.S. Tomahawk missiles struck a girls' school in the city of Minab, killing at least 170, most of them children.

Australia commits to yet another perilous American military adventure

It has been gradually building towards the inevitable: Australia entering the fray in the Middle East again – this time to fight Iran – in another war in which it is not threatened.

Those who survived, or who tried to offer survivors aid, were also killed in a “double-tap” secondary strike, a stomach-churning abuse of human nature that “our” supposedly moral and righteous side uses regularly. This single event is likely the worst war crime carried out by America since the My Lai massacre and will not be quickly forgotten by Iranians.

The horror in Minab was just the start of an avalanche of war crimes carried out by Israel and America, not least the torpedoing of an unarmed Iranian frigate in international waters and the destruction of Tehran’s oil storage facilities, causing an environmental catastrophe in a city of 9 million people.

The risk of a region-wide cataclysm is very real — nearly all states in the Gulf region rely heavily on desalination plants for their drinking water. The U.S. has struck Iranian desalination plants. If Iran responds in kind (as its Foreign Minister has suggested), millions of people could wake up to find there is no water to drink, under the hot Arabian sun.

Iran’s mining of the Strait of Hormuz (through which transits nearly 25% of the world’s seaborne oil) further indicates that this is not going to be a swiftly resolved matter, nor does it affect just oil. Global supply chains in natural gas, petrochemicals and vital fertilisers will be disrupted for months, and should (as seems likely) Iran choose to use its Yemeni proxies and close the nearby strait of Bab el-Mandeb to the south, another 9% of the global oil supply will be cut off, severing the last maritime export route from the Middle East, effectively closing the Suez Canal and forcing ships to travel via the Cape of Good Hope.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has said that the world is about to experience the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. The Economist has suggested the disruption will be twice as bad as the oil shocks of the 1970s. At best, the world is going to see a period of deep recession, at worst, a catastrophic collapse reminiscent of 2007/08 and a new world war.

Israel, in particular, now acts as an entirely rogue state, taking advantage of the moment to attack Lebanon (again), using banned white phosphorus weapons on residential areas, displacing over 800,000 Lebanese and dropping bombs on Red Crescent headquarters, universities and civilians in tents, whilst annexing yet more of the West Bank and continuing its genocide in Gaza.

Israel has an undeclared arsenal of around two hundred nuclear missiles and is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. America has the most nuclear bombs on Earth. Trump has said that the only constraint on his power is his own morality. Two genuine maniacs have their fingers on the nuclear trigger.

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This all combines with the deeply unsettling thought that perhaps this war is in great part just to distract Americans from the idea that the President was best friends with Jeffrey Epstein and has been credibly accused of raping children. War crimes to cover up sex crimes, something a majority of Americans already believe.

Australia has no business associating with a belligerent, genocidal, wanted war criminal and a moronic, malignant narcissist, who is allegedly also a paedophile. It is profoundly against the national interest to go along with this madness. Acquiescence to a war whose goals have yet to even be defined puts Australians in the line of fire and risks getting this country involved in a much broader conflagration, with our only reward appearing to be an “ally” set on implementing 15% tariffs on our exports.

We should, in short, tell America and Israel that Australia will play no part in the war in Iran. Summon their ambassadors and make it crystal clear that this country vehemently opposes yet another war in the Middle East. Close American bases across the country, including Pine Gap. Cancel the insane AUKUS plan (that is not even going to deliver submarines) and ask for our money back.

America and Israel should be sanctioned by Australia and any other governments that still adhere to the UN Charter. The so-called “rules-based order”, so long a fig leaf when placed in the hands of dominant powers, lies tattered. U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth says America no longer wishes to respect the rules of war. That sentiment is likely to be adopted by Iran, just as well.

Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have launched an illegal war of aggression and assassinated a head of state (who was also the spiritual leader of Shia Islam) during Ramadan.

Had any other country done something as reckless as this, Australia would have declared them our enemy. Instead, Australian society is twisting itself into a pretzel to accommodate the Israeli lobby, as police bash heads on Sydney streets and non-violent protesters are arrested for wearing t-shirts with banned slogans on them (‘from the river to the sea’ — an expression regularly used by Israeli politicians). Australians' freedom of speech has been criminalised to placate a rogue nuclear nation engaged in genocide and toying with World War Three.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should look no further than Joe Biden and Tony Blair as examples of left-of-centre leaders who saw their live’s work entirely overshadowed by the failure to stand up when an immoral war was launched by a supposed ally.

The fact that it is almost inconceivable that Albanese’s government will take any kind of stance against this insane war illustrates just how far this nation’s sovereignty and basic morality have been sacrificed, and the further this goes, the harder it will be for Australia to extricate itself.