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September 12, 2006
The Howard Government and its supporters in The Australian have argued that 9/11 meant that Australia had no choice: 9/11 changed everything, and our national interest and security were best served by our unequivocal support for the US and that the Anzus alliance had to be invoked. So Australia is now fighting on two battlefields, Afghanistan and Iraq because a battle against a small band of clever, fundamentalists terrorists has been turned into a worldwide war of epic scale. The reasoning for the Western strategy is that it is better tof pursue Islamist terrorists into their breeding and training grounds than to fight terrorism in our own countries.
Australia has suffered in terms of terrorist attack on Australian life and property: firstly, the Jakarta embassy bombing of September 9, 2004 by Jemaah Islamiah, (no Australian lives were lost, though 11 Indonesians died in the blast) and secondly, Bali, where 82 people, along with 120 other mainly foreign tourists, were killed. So far Australia has got off likely.
What of Australia's international standing and reputation as a result of the Howard Government's strong support for America's war on terror?
An editorial in the Canberra Times makes an interesting argument. It says:
In the Asia-Pacific region - the area of fundamental importance to our security outlook - many would argue that Australia has paid a very high price. And it's not just perceptions about Australia's willingness to act as a US deputy sheriff in the region, either - as damaging as that is to Asia perceptions about our independence. By openly backing the US Administration's arrogant dismissal of multilateral solutions to the terrorist threat, especially in dealing with Saddam Hussein, by echoing America's unilateralist swagger (especially when Howard said he would favour pre-emptive military strikes on neighbouring countries to thwart a terrorist strike against Australia), this Government has demonstrated an unnerving capacity to let ideology shape foreign policy. This preparedness to abandon principles of non-intervention, sovereignty and multilateralism has hardly wavered...
The principles of non-intervention, sovereignty and multilateralism have been abandoned in favour of national self- interest. Suprisingly, that does not mean a return to realist understanding of international relations for the conservatives---strategic self-reliance and regional engagement. It has meant going along with, and echoing, the Bush Administration's reshaping the US as a super power into an empire.
That echoing even goes so far as to condone strikes on Lebanese civilian infrastructure as an integral part of Israel's military strategy.
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I am not certain ideology drives Australian foreign policy. The "great and powerful friends" doctrine does, but that does not necessarily mean we share the Bush Administration's passion for an interventionist foreign policy. Howard and Downer dont really defend Afghanistan and Iraq, other than to equate it to the American mission of remaking the Middle East.
They have had more zeal for the bilateral economic agreements, which is more consistent of independent Australian action inside conservative-nationalism, but that has been global with the wane of institutions like the WTO to expedite world trade.
I think the Howard government is pretty disinterested in foreign policy unless it impacts domestic politics (ie government popularity) or the Au-US relationship.
I think action can be separated from rhetoric and media support in this instance.