We Keep Making The Same Mistake

by David Day - The Age

So now it's official: the seismic shift in the US Congress has forced President George Bush to look for a way out of the morass into which he blundered more than three years ago. With Iraq's population now estimated to be more than half a million people fewer than it would have been had the Americans not launched their invasion, George Bush and John Howard have been worse for the Iraqis than Saddam Hussein. That should not come as a surprise. The evidence has been there on the nightly news since the invasion was launched.

The Prime Minister can't say that people didn't warn him. Although he is fond of claiming lately that everyone back then was agreed about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and his supposed weapons of mass destruction, this was far from the case. Many people were counselling caution, warning him to wait until the weapons inspectors had time to come to a definitive conclusion. Many also wanted any action, if it did proceed, to be under the auspices of the United Nations rather than under the leadership of America alone. How right they were.

More than 100,000 Australians marched against the war before it started, but an arrogant Howard ignored their prescient protests. How wise he would now appear had he heeded those voices. In an article for The Age around that time, I warned that any invasion was likely to go badly and end up weakening the United States. I argued then that it was incumbent on Australia, as a loyal ally, to restrain the Americans from their folly rather than cheer them on. In ignoring such calls for calm, and the many appeals for a peaceful resolution, Howard has seriously damaged Australia's national interest.

The United States' influence in the Middle East, as well as in the wider world, is now much less than it was previously, while the influence and reach of fundamentalist Islamists is that much greater. While ostensibly seeking to shore up the Australian-American alliance, the Government has effectively eroded that alliance by boosting America's isolationist tendencies and making it less likely that the Americans will look kindly on any future military commitments, including those that might be needed to defend Australia.

How can this blundering diplomacy be explained? The Government presumably calculated that the Americans were going into Iraq whatever Australia decided and that it would be better to tag along, rather than act as a restraining influence on the temporarily dominant neo-conservatives in Washington. John Howard was besotted by the idea of a rampant American empire and only too willing to play the part of a quasi-colony.

Once again, a conservative government has shown that it cannot be trusted with Australia's security. During the 1920s and '30s, conservative governments based Australian defence policy on the misguided Singapore strategy, which relied on Britain's ability to send a fleet to Singapore to protect Australia from Japan. Despite contrary advice from the Australian Army, and pressure from the Labor Party, conservative governments stuck to the Singapore strategy. They failed to build up Australia's own defences while committing tens of thousands of Australians to the defence of a distant British naval base that was devoid of ships, and more than a hundred thousand other Australians to the defence of British interests in the Middle East. That monumental misjudgement almost led to the loss of Australia itself in 1942.

Fast-forward 30 years, and a conservative government under Robert Menzies went along with the American war in Vietnam, believing it would somehow help to secure Australia by having American forces engaged in conflict in South-East Asia. Menzies and his conservative successors urged on the American government, always arguing that the security of Australia was at stake, that there was a clash of civilisations involved, and that victory was just around the next corner. Sound familiar?

How can we learn from this sorry history? One way would be to have a bipartisan foreign affairs council to provide public advice on important foreign policy issues. Certainly, the politicised public service seems to have become incapable of providing the fearless advice that our national interest demands.

In contrast, a foreign affairs council that was appointed and funded by Parliament as a whole, and perhaps composed of retired diplomats, academics and former prime ministers, would be able to call on the expertise of other specialists, including from within the public service. Its considered recommendations could only be ignored by governments at their political peril.


David Day is professor of Australian studies at the University of Tokyo and a contributor to The Great Mistakes of Australian History (UNSW Press).

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