Illegal bombings of Iran by the US and Israel risk repeating the horrors of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that killed close to a million people and completely destabilised the region.
PM Anthony Albanese’s immediate support for the war is shameful and reveals that the federal government’s claim to support international law is hollow. Amidst reports of hundreds of civilian casualties, including over 100 schoolgirls in Minab on the first day of the conflict, Australia is making itself complicit in escalating warfare that could kill hundreds of thousands more, undermining the international laws that also keep this country safe.
There is no doubt the regime led by now-assassinated Ayatollah Khamenei is a brutal one that has suppressed its own citizens through censorship, abductions, and most recently mass killings of protestors.
It is only the people of Iran who can determine who leads their country. The many peoples’ movements of mass resistance and self-determination are just and have a long history.
Violent and illegal invasion by the US and Israel, who are pursuing their own narrow interests, will put the country on a path to more chaos and death, not liberation. If the relentless carpetbombing of Israel’s US-backed genocide in Gaza is repeated in Iran, this war will create yet another humanitarian catastrophe.
The responsibility of world leaders now must be de-escalation, strengthening international law and re-affirming the fundamental respect for sovereignty that underpins global peace.
Without this, the world risks being drawn further into a global conflagration as a declining US empire lashes out and tries to reassert dominance.
We have seen what this looks like in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya, in Syria, in Palestine, in Lebanon, in Ukraine, in Sudan.
In addition to the devastating human toll of war, the fossil fuels industry is closely tied to militaries and the “carbon bootprint” of military action is a key driver of the global climate crisis. Globally, people everywhere will feel the impacts of this illegal war through rising fuel prices while fossil fuel companies make windfall profits and carbon emissions rise.
Polling conducted by The Australia Institute shows that the public no longer trust Australia’s alliance with the US under Trump and are increasingly supportive of an independent foreign policy. Fewer than half of Australians believe the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal and security pact makes us safer, while over 56.8% support a parliamentary review of the agreement.
Friends of the Earth calls on the Albanese government to immediately withdraw its support for the US and Israel's illegal war on Iran.
Without a reset, PM Albanese’s legacy will be a more dangerous world created in part through Australian cowardice and complicity in forever wars that could have been avoided.