Foreign Minister Penny Wong has backed Anthony Albanese’s calls for the US to end the war in Iran, warning the US President that Australia has “concerns” if the goal remains regime change.
Speaking after the Prime Minister’s extraordinary intervention to tell Donald Trump that Australians wanted “an endpoint,” Senator Wong has now raised concerns.
“I said this from the very first day – we didn’t see the prospect of successful regime change being imposed externally,” Senator Wong told ABC radio.
“And I made the point, I think in the very first day, the very first press conference, that historically we’ve seen that trying to impose regime change from outside rarely works.
“We’ve made it clear that we would not provide boots on the ground.”
Overnight, the Prime Minister warned of the “devastating” impact on the world economy after Australia was forced to forego $2.5 billion in revenue to deliver fuel tax cuts.
“This has had a devastating impact, and that tail will continue for some time, and quite clearly, there is a need to see an endpoint. “I think that’s what people want to see,” Mr. Albanese said.
Speaking on ABC News Breakfast, she insisted many of the conflict’s goals had been achieved.
“We believe that it would be a good thing for the global economy and for Australians and certainly for the world, if we could see de-escalation and these talks lead to a cessation of the conflict,’’ Senator Wong said.
“We have concerns if the objective is regime change, because we have said all along, this is ultimately a matter for the people of Iran.”
When he launched the war a month ago, Mr Trump suggested that regime change was one of his goals. On Sunday, he suggested it had been achieved.
Overnight however, Mr Trump shared an opinion piece suggesting that if Iran’s nuclear ambitions are damaged that is sufficient, even if regime change is not achieved.
The piece was written by Alan Dershowitz, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, who served on the legal team of President Trump during the Senate impeachment trial of January 2020.
“If this goal is accomplished, though — if Iran is truly prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future — then this preventive military action will have been a crucially important success. This would be true even if other goals, such as regime change in Iran, are not accomplished,’’ Mr Dershowitz wrote.
“Eliminating Iran’s nuclear threat would be success enough. And such a success, produced by a combination of military action and diplomacy, would vindicate the concept of a preventive war conducted with precise goals in mind — in this case the elimination of the Iranian nuclear threat.”
Overnight, the US President insisted that the United States was in serious discussions with “A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran.”
“Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately “Open for Business,” we will conclude our lovely “stay” in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinisation plants!), which we have purposefully not yet “touched,’’ he said in a post on Truth Social.
“This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year “Reign of Terror.” Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Despite his remarks, the new leadership in Iran following the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is considered by many analysts to be more radicalised and under the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) than the previous regime.
