Albanese Government endorses Trump’s ‘Red Wedding’ diplomacy
Labor’s support for US attacks on Iran are unprecedented, and allow an acceptance of a bleak new form of diplomacy.
The Albanese government has reversed its neutral stance on the escalating crisis between Iran and Israel, following the United States’ targeting of Iran’s key nuclear facilities with strategic bombers, which threatens to expand the conflict into a global crisis. After mixed reports about the success of the strikes on the Natanz, Fordow, and other nuclear facilities, the situation has worsened, with Tehran issuing orders to close shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, severing diplomatic connections with Washington, and vowing to retaliate against the clear breach of international law.
On June 12, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a series of pre-emptive airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear and military sites. In the attack, a combination of airstrikes and terrorist attacks carried out by operatives embedded in Iran inflicted damage on nuclear, military, energy, and residential infrastructure, killing hundreds, including decapitation strikes that eliminated key Iranian military and scientific personnel, such as IRGC commander-in-chief Hossein Salami.
In the aftermath, as car bombs continued to explode targeting scientists and their families, Olympic horse stables were bombed by Israeli F-35s, and chaos ensued on the streets of Tehran. Iran’s retaliation began swiftly, alongside talk of aggression against Tehran from Washington. During this period of escalation, and following the murders of high-ranking figures in the Iranian government, the Trump administration has spoken of diplomacy out of one side of its mouth while striking Iran on behalf of Israel, culminating in B-2 Spirit bombers deploying bunker-buster munitions on select nuclear sites.
As seen in the coordinated drone strike from Ukraine on Russia only days before long-anticipated peace talks, the assassination of Iran’s top military brass just days before scheduled negotiations with Washington highlights an emerging pattern in U.S. diplomacy.
To say that foreign policy decision-making in Washington has become discombobulated would be incorrect; it has clearly become deranged. A ‘Red Wedding diplomacy,’ akin to the Game of Thrones episode (where a key family was lured to their death under the guise of a wedding) is taking form as the basic foreign policy in Washington and Tel Aviv, shattering the tattered remnants of the rules and norms of bilateral engagement. A traditional invitation for peace is now a disguise for luring negotiators to a location marked for their death, assurances of a lack of desire to escalate conflict are distractions for pre-emptive decapitation strikes, and promises about neutralising nuclear sites are code words for regime change and total war.
This echoes a disturbing new trend that threatens to shatter the centuries-long recognition of conventions that have held international diplomacy intact since the Treaty of Westphalia. As the blades come out and the doors are locked, with all the allies present to witness this Red Wedding diplomacy—some appalled and some complicit—where does Australia stand as the blood flows?
After a press conference held by Liberal minister Andrew Hastie and a cacophony of collective press propaganda echoing verbatim calls for war from Washington, rubber-stamped in agreement by the now-ideological ABC, Labor has once again scurried between the narrow lines provided by the ideologues in its right faction, the opposition, and the media, who insist the PM play political limbo while holding the largest parliamentary majority since Chifley. The next morning, after urging diplomatic solutions until the night before, cautioning against escalation, and maintaining a neutral position with Iran regarding its response to Israel’s act of aggression, Foreign Minister Penny Wong reversed her statement alarmingly, saying Australia now backs U.S. military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. “Australia has been clear, along with the international community, that Iran cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon,” she said with a trademark concerned face that seemed to mask her sovereign abrogation.
It was left to Raf Epstein on the Insiders program on the ABC to cut through the chorus of captured voices. Flanked by Samantha Maiden, Phil Coorey, and David Speers, each offering the same familiar display of embarrassingly shallow analysis of the situation and a lack of ability (or care given) to understand and articulate foreign affairs matters, Epstein commented: “There hasn’t been a single question (from the press gallery) about whether what Israel is doing is illegal.” Harking back to a 2003 version of Phil Coorey that may have once questioned this incredibly incendiary action, Coorey gazed at his shoes, perhaps reminiscing on better days, before replying, “I don’t think they care.”
The media has been almost entirely absent in providing checks and balances on the nature of this development, devoid of a probing question. Let alone a 2003 Phil Coorey, none of the propaganda peddlers in the Australian press can be found asking the right questions: Why is the Australian government beating the war drum on behalf of a Trump administration working in concert with the genocidal state of Netanyahu’s Israel? Why are we entertaining the legitimacy of these illegal and provocative actions?
In the wake of Trump’s war, with the certainties and guarantees of anything too incomprehensible to argue, PM Anthony Albanese, now helping to mop up the blood rather than run to Winterfell, called for Iran to negotiate and not retaliate, saying the world has “long agreed” the nation cannot have a nuclear weapon and Australia supports “action to prevent that.” Amidst all the blood spatter and peace disguised as regime-change wars, after knowingly or unwittingly helping to weave the tapestry of Western diplomatic deceit that has forced Iran into a war posture—after suddenly supporting the illegal U.S. bombing of nuclear facilities—the Albanese government decided all of a sudden it was keen to play down its involvement in the crisis, taking a line that Australia is more of a bystander than an active participant.
The public called instant bullshit, and as it attempted to do what it does best and transform into a small target, Labor couldn’t hide from its involvement in this Red Wedding, from its role in the starvation of Gaza and the ignorant and abusive contempt it treats Iran as it urges it to dine with those who seek to kill it. Israel is still committing a genocide in Gaza, it has struck sovereign neighbours, including this pre-emptive war on Iran, its senior government ministers, including PM Benjamin Netanyahu, are wanted for crimes of genocide, and the United States has bombed Iran for them at their request. For nearly two years, Australians can see it all, and aside from the humiliating inaction and weak leadership from our government, it’s the consequentially serious joke in the media and politicians who walk around this fact, contrary to our important national interest, and those who, worse still, look to bog us down in the wars and seek to justify genocide, that have truly failed Australia.
If our government can change its mind so quickly on something as fundamental as the perception of what constitutes justification for a pre-emptive strike on a foreign nation, how can we trust them not to make a case for Australian involvement in a future war in that nation? Without a 9/11, the coalition of the willing, two years of propaganda, and vial-wagging by Colin Powell at the UN, it’s going to be hard for any Australian government to mobilise Australians for a war with Iran, and it’s going to be political suicide for any government that thinks it can do so.
The Australian public has watched Israel lie through its teeth to justify a 600-plus-day genocide, it has seen Washington obfuscate for them under bipartisan presidents, and it has been appalled seeing the same actions here by the lesser-of-two-evils major party that Steven Bradburied their way into a second term of government at home. Wong and Albanese flip-flopped on their perception of international law before our very eyes, at the drop of a hat, backing the strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as legitimate, thus paving the way for accepting any ill-defined strategic insanity that lies ahead.
Instead of getting off this vomit-soiled Gravitron of lies and deception that is rapidly spinning from urging peace to deploying strategic bombers to regime change with Australian involvement, Albanese stands before Australia on new ground, confirming a new paradigm of war and aggression based on pure diplomatic disingenuousness, running a country that now currently supports Red Wedding diplomacy as its default. Just as Australians have had to struggle to come to terms with the unhinged developments of the Trump administration, now they also have to contend with their own government excusing them against the national interest, driving Australians further away from those in power who seem content to march us into a horrible and unecessary war.
Exquisitely well said , thank you Joel . My disgust and contempt for the spineless , cowardly excuse for “leadership” from Albanese , Wong and Marles has no limit . Grovelling puppets of the US and Israel , they humiliate and betray this nation and all its people. Having won an election as merely the lesser of two evils they continue to demonstrate their unfitness for office.
Thank you Joel.
When you watch Penny Wong’s speech, it could be the voice of Netanyahu. The words are like verbatim a press release from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Wong’s carefully crafted image of the ‘respectable’ foreign policy hand shows itself a hollowed out log with her endorsement of international crimes of aggression against foreign sovereign states. Do Indonesia, Malaysia and the Phillipines have reason to fear Australia will attack them without evidence to get its own way? This is what Australia’s ALP and LNP endorse.
To Marles, Wong and Albanese, the UN Charter is but a scrap of paper, to be referenced with the likes of Russia, Sudan or other Global South Countries.