That insipid statement was in response to Operation Midnight Hammer, a strike on three nuclear facilities in Iran by the US Air Force, authorised by US President Donald Trump on June 22. With such spectacular violence came the hollow call for diplomatic prudence and restraint. There was an important difference: Tehran, not Israel or Washington, would be the subject of scolding. Iran would not be permitted nuclear weapons but jaw jaw was better than war war. “We note the US president’s statement that now is the time for peace,” stated the spokesperson. “The security situation in the region is highly volatile. We continue to call for de-escalation, dialogue and diplomacy.”

Within twenty-four hours, that anodyne position had morphed into one of unconditional approval for what was a breach of the United Nations Charter, notably its injunction against the threatened or actual use of force against sovereign states in the absence of authorisation by the UN Security Council or the necessity of self-defence. “The world has long agreed Iran cannot be allowed to get a nuclear weapon, and we support action to prevent this. That is what this is,” accepted Wong.

This assessment was not only silly but colossally misguided. It would have been an absurd proposition for the US to make the claim that they were under imminent threat of attack, a condition seen as necessary for a pre-emptive strike. This was a naked submission to the wishes of a small, destabilising and sole (undeclared) nuclear power in the Middle East, a modern territorial plunderer celebratory of ethnonational supremacy.

The Australian position, along a number of European states, also failed to acknowledge the General Conference Resolutions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (in particular GC(XIXI)/RES/444 and GC(XXIV)/RES/533) declaring that “any armed attack on and threat against nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful purposes constitutes a violation of the United Nations Charter, international law and the Statute of the Agency.”

Wong also misrepresented the circumstances under which Iran was told they could negotiate over their nuclear program, erroneously accepting the line from the Trump administration that Tehran had “an opportunity to comply”. Neither the US diplomatic channel, which only permitted a narrow, fleeting corridor for actual negotiations, nor Israel’s wilful distortion of the IAEA’s assessment of Iran’s uranium enrichment plans and prevarication, ever gave chance for a credible resolution. Much like the calamitous, unlawful invasion of Iraq in 2003 by a crew of brigand nations – the merry trio of US, UK and Australia stood out – the autopilot to war was set, scornful of international law.

Wong’s shift from constipated caution to free flow approval for the US attack, with its absent merits and weighty illegalities, was also a craven capitulation to the warmonger class permanently mesmerised by the villain school of foreign relations. This cerebrally challenged view sees few problems with attacking nuclear facilities, the radioactive dangers of doing so, and the merits of a state having them in the first place.

The US attack on Iran found hearty approval among the remnants of the conservative opposition, who tend to specialise in the view that pursuing a pro-Israeli line, right, wrong, or murderous, is the way to go. Liberal Senator and former Australian ambassador to Israel, David Sharma, thought the Albanese government’s initial response “underwhelming and perplexing”, claiming that support for this shredding of international law “a straightforward position for Australia to adopt”. Sharma is clearly getting rusty on his law of nations.

His side of politics is also of the view that the attacked party here – Iran – must forgo any silly notion of self-defence and retaliation and repair to the table of diplomacy in head bowed humiliation. “We want to see Iran come to the negotiating table to verify where that 400 kilos of enriched uranium is,” stated a very stern opposition home affairs minister, Andrew Hastie. “I’m very glad to see that Penny Wong has essentially endorsed our position and I’m glad we have bipartisanship on this.”

Australia’s response has been that of the weary poltroon. Little has been asked about Canberra’s standout complicity in assisting the US imperium fulfil its global reach when it comes to striking targets. The role of the intelligence signals facility in Pine Gap, cutely and inaccurately called a joint venture, always lends its critical role to directing the US war machine through its heavy reliance on satellite technology. Wong, when asked about the role played by the facility in facilitating the attacks on Iran, had little to say. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was also cold towards disclosing any details. “We are upfront, but we don’t talk about intelligence, obviously. But we’ve made very clear this was unilateral action taken by the United States.”

At least on this occasion, Australia did not add its forces to an illegal adventure, as it all too wilfully did in 2003. Then, Iraq was invaded on the spurious grounds that weapons of mass destruction not only existed but would somehow be used either by the regime of Saddam Hussein or fictional proxies he might eventually supply. History forever shows that no such weapons were found, nor proxies equipped. But the Albanese government has shown not only historical illiteracy but an amnesia on the matter. Unfortunately, it’s the sort of amnesia that has become contagious, afflicting a goodly number of Washington’s satellites, vassals and friendly states.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

The exercise, conducted in international waters by a cruiser, frigate and replenishment ship, involved what is said to have been poor notice given to Australian authorities on February 21. But the matter has rapidly burgeoned into something else: that what the Chinese task fleet did was mischievously remarkable, exceptional and snooty to convention and protocols. It is on that score that incontinent demagogy has taken hold.

Media outlets have done little to soften the barbs. A report by ABC News, for instance, notes that Airservices Australia was “only aware of the exercises 40 minutes after China’s navy opened a ‘window’ for live-fire exercises from 9.30am.” The first pickup of the exercises came from a Virgin Australia pilot, who had flown within 250 nautical miles of the operation zone and warned of the drills. Airservices Australia was immediately contacted, with the deputy CEO of the agency, Peter Curran, bemused about whether “it was a potential hoax or real.”

Defence Chief Admiral David Johnston told Senate estimates that he would have preferred more notice for the exercises – 24-48 hours was desirable – but it was clear that Coalition Senator and shadow home affairs minister James Paterson wanted more. Paterson had thought it “remarkable that Australia was relying on civilian aircraft for early warning about military exercises by a formidable foreign task group in our region.” To a certain extent, the needlessly irate minister got what he wanted, with the badgered Admiral conceding that the Chinese navy’s conduct had been “irresponsible” and “disruptive”.

Wu Qian, spokesperson for the China National Ministry for Defence, offered a different reading: “During the period, China organised live-fire training of naval guns toward the sea on the basis of repeatedly issuing prior safety notices”. Its actions were “in full compliance with international law and international practice, with no impact on aviation flight safety”. That said, 49 flights were diverted on February 21.

Much was also made about what were the constituent elements of the fleet. As if it mattered one jot, the Defence Force chief was pressed on whether a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine had made up the task force. “I don’t know whether there is a submarine with them, it is possible, task groups occasionally do deploy with submarines but not always,” came the reply. “I can’t be definitive whether that’s the case.”

The carnival of fear was very much in town, with opposition politicians keen to blow air into the balloon of the China threat across the press circuit. The shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie warned listeners on Sydney radio station 2GB of “the biggest peacetime military buildup since 1945”, Beijing’s projection of power with its blue-water navy, the conduct of two live-fire exercises and the Chinese taskforce operating within Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone off Tasmania. Apparently, all of this showed the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, to be “weak” for daring to accept that the conduct complained of was legal under international law. “Now that may be technically right, but that misses the deeper subtext, and that is China is now in our backyard, and they’ve demonstrated that we don’t have the will to insist on our national interest and mutual respect.”

There are few voices of sensible restraint in Australia’s arid landscape of strategic thinking, but one could be found. Former principal warfare officer of the Royal Australian Navy, Jennifer Parker, commendably remarked that this hardly warranted the title of “a crisis”. To regard it as such “with over-the-top indignation diminishes our capacity to tackle real crises as the region deteriorates.” Australia might, at the very least, consider modernising a surface fleet that was “the smallest and oldest we’ve had since 1950.”

Allegations that Beijing should not be operating in Australia’s exclusive economic zone, let alone conduct live-fire exercises in international waters, served to give it “a propaganda win to challenge our necessary deployments to North-East Asia and the South China Sea – routes that carry two-thirds of our maritime trade.”

The cockeyed priorities of the Australian defence establishment lie elsewhere: fantasy, second hand US nuclear-powered submarines that may, or may never make their way to Australia; mushy hopes of a jointly designed nuclear powered submarine specific to the AUKUS pact that risks sinking off the design sheet; and the subordination of Australian land, naval and spatial assets to the United States imperium.

Such is the standard of political debate that something as unremarkable as this latest sea incident has become a throbbing issue that supposedly shows the Albanese government as insufficiently belligerent. Yet there was no issue arising, other than a statement of presence by China’s growing navy, something it was perfectly entitled to do.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.