No-one liked Anthony Albanese’s response to US attack on Iran

No-one seems especially happy with Anthony Albanese’s response to the US attack on Iran.

In the pages of The Australian, several writers claimed the prime minister was too slow and too timid in his response. “PM’s confusion, passivity and weakness has made us irrelevant,” was the headline on a piece by Greg Sheridan yesterday.

“On Monday, through gritted teeth, came government statements saying Australia supported the US actions in Iran … The Albanese government got to the right position but, characteristically, only after exhausting all other alternatives,” Sheridan wrote.

Another take, by Ben Packham, was headlined: “Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong too slow to back Iran strikes”.

The editorial team at The Sydney Morning Herald had a similar line, criticising Albanese’s “lame silence” and saying he should have made his stance “loud and clear” on Sunday.

Then, in parliament, Albanese’s critics took turns bashing him for his support of the US airstrikes.

Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie said Albanese was “bending over to Trump”, adding it was “shameful” and that Albanese should “start standing up” to the “bloody sociopath” in the White House.

Greens foreign affairs spokesperson David Shoebridge accused Albanese of trying to “curry favour” with Trump, adding: “Obviously a lot of countries are desperate to have the approval of an increasingly erratic and dangerous Trump administration … it would be far better if the statements were based on the most credible international evidence, and they are not.”

The opposition dispatched Liberal foreign affairs spokesperson Andrew Hastie to blame Albanese for being “too slow and too passive” in his response.

“Yesterday we only heard from a spokesperson from the government, which was a very ambiguous statement, and only heard from the prime minister today,” Hastie said on Monday.

Albanese even copped flak from some in his own party. Former Labor senator and union leader Doug Cameron, speaking in his capacity as national patron for Labor Against War, told Guardian Australia the group condemned the Albanese government’s support for Trump’s strikes.

“We believe it is illegal, and we believe it’s inconsistent with the long-held Labor Party’s support for the United Nations and for the United Nations charters,” he said. “[The government’s position] is inconsistent with the long history of Labor support for peace and nuclear disarmament.”

It’s fair to criticise Albanese’s government for being excessively opaque when it comes to the Iran situation, including refusing to answer questions about whether Australian signals facilities were used as part of the attack. And yes, issuing a statement through an anonymous spokesperson and then waiting 24 hours before offering comment himself wasn’t a particularly impressive show of statesmanship.

But critics should keep in mind Albanese took a stronger and clearer stance than many other world leaders, especially among those allied with the US.

Confirming the Australian government’s support for the strike, Albanese told a press conference with Penny Wong on Monday: “The world has long agreed that Iran cannot be allowed to get a nuclear weapon and we support action to prevent that — that is what this is,” he said. “The US action was directed at specific sites central to Iran’s nuclear program. Iran didn’t come to the table just as it has repeatedly failed to comply with its international obligations. We urge Iran not to take any further action that could destabilise the region.”

The leaders who condemned the US action included top officials from Russia, China, North Korea, and many nations in Latin America and the Middle East.

But finding leaders who expressed explicit support for the strikes is harder. Outside the US, Israel and Australia, there weren’t many who were applauding. A notable exception was Argentina’s government, led by right-wing libertarian maverick Javier Milei, which was full-throated in its support of Trump’s intervention.

Many other US allies tried a much more delicate balancing act, calling for a return to the negotiating table and underscoring the risks involved in a wider war, while making it clear Iran should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, for example, urged “all sides to step back [and] return to the negotiating table”. Even the UK, whose special defence relationship with the US is similar to Australia’s, took a relatively ambiguous stance. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the US had “taken action to alleviate the threat” of Iran’s nuclear program, which he labelled a “grave threat to international security”.

Meanwhile, Starmer’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy made it through a 15-minute interview on BBC Radio without being drawn on whether he backed the airstrikes. He also avoided commenting on whether they were legal, and ducked questions on whether the UK supported Trump’s talk of regime change in Tehran.

For better or worse, Albanese has emerged as one of the few world leaders to clearly spell out his support for the US air strikes. The questions will now be whether Trump notices — and just how far Australia is willing to follow the US president down the path he’s chosen. With news overnight that Iran has attacked US military bases in Qatar, things are likely to escalate fast.