Australia needs to rethink its position on Iran

Voter turnout hit a record high at 80% in the 1997 elections which delivered a landslide victory for reformist President Mohammad Khatami. Women and young people were key to the vote. Incumbent President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate seeking a second term, was elected with a 70% turnout. Iran's official estimates have 10.2 million people lined the 32-kilometre (20 mi) route to Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery on 11 June 1989, for the funeral of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Western agencies estimated that 2 million paid their respects as the body lay in state. The ayatollahs were initially supported but have not been successful in building a strong economy, notes Al Jazeera.

In 2017 US President Donald Trump disavowed the international nuclear deal with Iran, calling it weak and poorly constructed. estranging the US from its allies in Europe, as Britain, Germany and France who have declared their backing for the deal.

Then there is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Trump administration recently took the unprecedented step of designating the elite Revolutionary Guard as a foreign terrorist organization. The United States now blames on the organization the deaths of close to 260 Americans - killed in separate bombings on U.S. compounds in Beirut in 1983 and 1984. Islamic Jihad had claimed responsibility for the bombings at the time and said that the aim was to force the peacekeeping Multi National Force out of Lebanon. In a September 2001 PBS interview, Casper Weinberger, Defense Secretary at the time, stated that it was not known who did the 1983 bombing. The 1984 suicide bombing of the U.S. embassy annex in East Beirut was carried out by the Shi'a militant group Hezbollah.

Recent conflicts in the Gulf – the explosions on the four tankers, the shooting down of a US drone, the commitment to war and sending of troops by the US President , and then his withdrawal, have put the Middle East and the world on edge . This writer believes that a backdown by President Trump is the preferred solution. Should he not, Iranians will fight for their country. It is, after all, their country with a long history, of which they are proud. With a long history of US aggression, they have no love for the United States.

The escalation of tensions is drawing in US allies. A recent Washington Post article noted that U.S. allies risked becoming collateral damage in Iran fight. The escalations of tensions between Iran and Britain began when British forces assisted local law enforcement in apprehending an Iranian supertanker in the Mediterranean Sea near the British territory of Gibraltar on July 4. The British government later asserted that the vessel was violating E.U. sanctions on trade with Syria. A dispute between Britain and Iran would be welcomed by the Trump administration, which has struggled to convince European nations that its hard line on Iran is necessary. "Excellent news," White House national security adviser John Bolton tweeted last week when Britain detained the Iranian tanker.

Trump's Iran strike, incidentally would have been illegal. It is illegal for one country to use force against another, unless it is either (a) authorised by the UN Security Council, or (b) in self-defence. There is no other possible circumstance.

The US /Australia alliance does not only concern our relations with Iran. Marines have rotated through a United States military base outside Darwin since 2012, starting with 200 troops. From July 2019 the size of the deployment is due to expand to its intended maximum of 2500 marines. The Australian Foreign Affairs Journal reports (26 June 2019) that the increasing military presence is due to the heightened US tensions in the area and world-wide. On the Iran conflict, however, Australia would be best advised not to support Trump's belligerency, but to attempt to convince him to rejoin his European allies in the Iran nuclear deal that he abandoned.

We should never forget the invasion of Iraq, in which Australia was a member of the Coalition of the Willing. That invasion, based on false information, was the direct cause behind the creation of ISIS, easily the most barbaric jihadist group of all.

Should the conflict with Iran escalate, the military disparity between the two nations needs to be noted. The US has 7200 nuclear warheads, Iran has none. The US spends on it military budget four times what Iran spends. It has has two and a half times as many personnel in uniform. Should Trump declare war, it would entail massive slaughter. Australia should try to stop it.