Australia Has No Middle East Policy… It Has America’s
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Numan Mousa | Middle East Fellow
"Our government is about to redefine us in the eyes of the world as willing backers of US militarism."
Can you guess who said that?
Those words were spoken on the floor of the Australian parliament in 2003, by a Labor backbencher who called the Iraq War an 'unjust, illegal war', following US militarism against Australia's national interest, and demanded that Australian troops be brought home. He became one of Canberra's harshest critics of the Iraq War.
That man is now the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese.
In late February, the United States (US) and Israel launched strikes on Iran without warning, in the middle of diplomatic negotiations in Oman where Iran agreed not to stockpile uranium. This was done without prior notice, or thought of consequences to its allies such as the Gulf, Jordan, and Europe. Yet Albanese stood at a podium and backed them. The same man who once called American unilateralism an outrage committed Australian military assets to a new US-Israel led conflict in the Middle East.
Why It Happens: The Architecture Of Silence
This is not the first time that Albanese has walked back the convictions of his earlier political life. He was once one of Australia's harshest critics of Israel, attending pro-Palestine demonstrations in 2000, and delivering pro-Palestine speeches in parliament. Yet when a United Nations (UN) commission determined that Israel’s war was a genocide, or when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) determined the occupation of the West Bank to be illegal, the Albanese government remained mostly silent. The Australian government’s position on Gaza tip-toed around Washington's approval: minimal criticism, no sanctions, no diplomatic consequences - despite widespread public condemnation.
So why? This kind of uncritical alignment with the US begins with infrastructure. Pine Gap, a joint US-Australian intelligence base, was initially designed to boost national security, and now feeds signals directly into US military decision-making across the Middle East. When Washington strikes a target, Australian infrastructure may have helped identify it. AUKUS has embedded us into American defence supply chains for decades. Five Eyes comes with implicit expectations of alignment.
Beyond infrastructure, there is politics. The lesson of Mark Latham, whose 2004 defeat was partly attributed to calling for troops home from Iraq, haunts Labor. Every leader since has known that diverging from Washington carries disproportionate electoral cost. The question in Canberra is not "what does Australia think?" but rather "how quickly can we signal alignment?"
Then there is language; when Penny Wong backed the Iran strikes, despite an opposing Australian public, she mirrored US State Department phrasing. On Gaza, the Australian and US governments’ statements have had near-identical wording across multiple press releases. Not similar: nearly identical. A sovereign nation, with its own foreign ministry, its own legal advisors, its own diaspora communities, outsourcing its vocabulary along with its analysis. And it doesn't stop at words.
Our trade posture in the Middle East mirrors Washington's just as faithfully: the same partners prioritised, the same economies isolated, the same sanctions inherited wholesale from US foreign policy decisions that were never ours to make. We must stop calling it alignment, when it is in fact an outsourced Middle East policy.
Why It's Terrible for Australia
The Iraq War showed where this leads: false intelligence, no plan for the aftermath, the rise of ISIS, a refugee crisis that reshaped global politics, dead Australian soldiers and civilians, and by security agencies' own assessment, an elevated terrorist threat at home. Albanese himself ordered an inquiry in 2024 into why the Cabinet documents authorising the Iraq war remain secret.
It is safe to say that hitching yourself to a country with a long history of invoking violence in the name of democracy doesn't end well for Australia. It puts the 115,000 Australians in the Middle East repeatedly in danger, and alienates Australia’s Middle Eastern community. It breaches international law and Australian values.
And the costs don't stop at lives. The diplomatic and economic consequences of blindly following the US into conflicts in the Middle East are real and compounding. Our relationships with regional partners, many of whom hold fundamentally different positions on these conflicts, are quietly fraying. Our energy supply is exposed. Gulf instability doesn't stay in the Gulf, it moves through pipelines, shipping lanes, and oil markets, and arrives in Australian petrol stations and power bills. Airfares are already climbing as Middle Eastern airspace remains partially closed, rerouting flights and pushing up costs for ordinary Australians. These are not abstract geopolitical consequences. They are the price that everyday Australians pay for a foreign policy that was not designed with them in mind.
A Nation That Thinks for Itself
Australia has never once found the courage to pay the actual price of its stated values. Every position on the Middle East has been calibrated around what Washington will tolerate, what the alliance requires, and what it costs domestically to tell the truth.
Anthony Albanese was right about Iraq. The system punished him for it. Now he runs the system. And Iran is paying the price.
Numan Mousa is a multidisciplinary analyst working at the intersection of human rights, diplomacy, and technology governance. He holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from UNSW and the University of Sydney, where he also served as Vice President (Externals) of the University Diplomats’ Society.
Numan has applied his policy research and cyber governance expertise across the public and private sectors, including roles with the Australian Institute of International Affairs, as well as advisory positions with global firms such as Deloitte and EY in the Middle East and Indonesia. He is also an alumnus of the Global Student Fellowship, where he conducted human-rights-focused policy research in Southeast Asia.
Having been raised in Jordan, Numan brings strong regional literacy and grounded lived experience across the Middle East, shaping his understanding of governance, security, and human-impact challenges. He is committed to elevating regional perspectives in global policy discussions, promoting integrity, empathy, and contextual insight, while supporting stronger Australia-Middle East diplomatic engagement.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Young Australians in International Affairs. AI tools were used by this author for grammar checks and idea refinement, but all content is original, and no plagiarism has been used in the preparation of this article.