Trump's AUKUS review is routine, not a harbinger of collapse

News that the US Department of Defence has launched an AUKUS review has Canberra's defence circles in overdrive, with familiar critics already proclaiming the pact is 'sinking'. Yet this outbreak of anxiety poses a bigger danger than the review itself. Washington's routine stocktake changes nothing fundamental: the risks are unchanged and the safeguards Australia has put in place remain fit for purpose.
Although the Pentagon has yet to confirm the review, reputable reporting – and Canberra's evident lack of surprise – makes its existence clear. Commentators have blamed everything from tariff spats to Australia's sanctions on Israeli ministers and Washington's call for higher defence spending. Far likelier, the new Trump administration has folded AUKUS into its accelerated National Defence Strategy rewrite, scheduled for release in August – the first since the partnership's AUKUS 'optimal pathway' was outlined in 2023. Notably, the US Under Secretary of Defence for Policy, Elbridge Colby, is steering both the AUKUS review and the National Defence Strategy rewrite.
Australia's Defence Minister, Richard Marles, has indicated publicly that he has known of it for weeks – US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth likely told him during the Shangri-La dialogue. The leak itself appears timed to squeeze Canberra ahead of a likely G7 meeting between Donald Trump and Anthony Albanese, following Australia's public refusal to lift defence spending simply because Washington asked.
Despite domination of the AUKUS discussion, the review heralds no fundamental shift for AUKUS. Defence projects are never 'run-of-the-mill', and this, Australia's most ambitious and expensive, carries a significant degree of risk. Risk that requires vigilance rather than complacency. Even so, the partnership's underlying risk profile remains unchanged. The challenges of workforce, timeframes and the low US submarine production rate remain the same as they were when the deal was announced in 2021 and Australia's nuclear-powered submarine 'optimal pathway' was agreed in 2023.
So, what will the review likely conclude? Congress already locked the key AUKUS provisions into law via the 2023 National Defence Authorisation Act, and bipartisan backing remains solid. Senior officials keep reinforcing that support: Secretary of State Marco Rubio calls AUKUS a 'blueprint' for allied co-operation; Hegseth says the president is 'fully behind it'. Even Elbridge Colby – now leading the review – told Congress in March: 'We should do everything possible to make this work.' Despite the glaring absence of AUKUS in Hegseth's Shangri-La speech, the political framing, in short, is favourable.
Why wouldn't the review be favourable? AUKUS delivers plenty for Washington. Australia is injecting $5 billion into America's submarine yards and will host US boats for maintenance, cutting transit and refit times. Beyond the deal itself, Canberra has deepened force-posture support: rotating marines through Darwin, basing US bombers and expanding logistics hubs. All this sits atop Australia's indispensable intelligence and communications infrastructure – Pine Gap and the Harold E. Holt station – that lets the US talk to its nuclear-powered submarines across the Indo-Pacific. The benefits, for America, only multiply from there.
Australia sits at the core of America's ability to respond to any China-related crisis in the Indo-Pacific – and preparing for that contingency is reportedly a pillar of the US interim National Defence Strategy. It was front and centre in Hegseth's Shangri-La speech, in which he warned of an 'imminent' regional threat from Beijing.
Across South-East and North-East Asia, Australia is viewed as Washington's closest ally. If the US back-pedalled on – or seriously weakened – AUKUS, regional capitals would notice immediately, eroding US credibility and its strategy aimed at deterring China.

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Sky News AU

an hour ago

• Sky News AU

Major doubts raised about impact of US strikes on Iran's nuclear program as intelligence shows enriched uranium moved

Experts have raised major doubts about the impact of US strikes on Iran's nuclear program, with intelligence indicating large amounts of enriched uranium were moved ahead of time. President Trump has claimed the strikes caused "monumental" damage to the nuclear sites, while Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel is "very close" to eliminating the nuclear program. The US was the only country with weapons capable of destroying Iran's Fordow nuclear enrichment facility, which is built 80 to 90 metres under a mountain. Satellite imagery of the site shows six large holes where B2 stealth bombers dropped 14 massive bunker buster bombs - each weighing 13.6 tonnes and capable of penetrating 18 metres into concrete and 61 metres into earth. But satellite imagery expert Decker Eveleth, an associate researcher with the CNA Corporation, said the hall containing hundreds of centrifuges is "too deeply buried for us to evaluate the level of damage based on satellite imagery". Several experts have also cautioned that Iran likely moved a stockpile of near weapons-grade highly enriched uranium out of Fordow before the strike early Sunday morning and could be hiding it and other nuclear components in locations unknown to Israel, the U.S. and U.N. nuclear inspectors. They noted satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed "unusual activity" at Fordow on Thursday and Friday, with a line of 13 cargo trucks waiting outside an entrance of the facility. A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Sunday most of the near weapons-grade 60 per cent highly enriched uranium had been moved to an undisclosed location before the U.S. attack. The New York Times has also reported that Israeli officials with knowledge of the intelligence believe Iran had moved equipment and uranium from the site in recent days, including 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity. This was confirmed by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who told the Times Iran had "made no secret" of the fact they had moved the materials. US Vice President JD Vance has also admitted the White House does not know the fate of the enriched uranium. The uranium would need to be enriched to around 90 per cent purity to be used in a weapon, but it is reportedly enough to make nine or 10 atomic bombs. Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey said there were "almost certainly facilities that we don't know about" and the strikes have likely only set back Iran's nuclear program "by maybe a few years". US Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona and a member of the Senate intelligence committee who said he had been reviewing intelligence every day, expressed the same concern. "My big fear right now is that they take this entire program underground, not physically underground, but under the radar," he told NBC News. "Where we tried to stop it, there is a possibility that this could accelerate it." Iran lashed out at the US after the attacks, accusing it of crossing a "very big red line" by striking the nation's "peaceful" nuclear facilities. The nation's foreign minister also hinted that Iran may withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - which Iran's parliament began preperations after Israel launched its first strikes "It cannot be emphasised enough how much of a devastating blow that the US, a permanent member of the Security Council, dealt to the global Non-Proliferation regime," Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said at a press conference in Turkey. According to Arms Control Association head Daryl Kimball, "the world is going to be in the dark about what Iran may be doing". Mick Mulroy, a former CIA officer who served in the Pentagon during Trump's first term, told the New York Times the US strike would "likely set back the Iranian nuclear weapon program two to five years'. -With Reuters

The Advertiser

an hour ago

• The Advertiser

Pot, kettle, black. We're wallowing in hypocrisy

This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to Who the hell does that? It was a hospital, for god's sake. Full of the sick, the immobile. Babies. Mothers. Innocents. The tyrants will pay a high price, he told the media, with as straight a face as he could muster - a challenge for someone whose mouth always struggles to suppress an ironic smirk. This was a criminal act, he said. We target military installations; they target civilians. Benjamin Netanyahu's condemnation of the Iranian missile strike on the Soroka Medical Centre in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba was meant to rally his nation, showing the world it was acting with high moral purpose. Instead, it reeked of hypocrisy. Just 40km away, in the rubble that was once Gaza, people have lost count of the number of times hospitals have been struck by Israel. Lost count, too, of the number of times Israel claimed the attacks - not just on hospitals but on schools and tented encampments - were targeting Hamas militants. The only count not lost: the 55,000 dead Palestinians. The day before the hospital was hit, dozens of Palestinians were killed in Gaza trying to get food from the shambolic Israeli-run aid distribution sites. Some of the dead showed injuries consistent with tank fire. Pot, kettle, black. Of course, the hypocrisy isn't limited to Netanyahu in this ugly slugfest between Israel and Iran. The leaders of our own democracies have been wallowing in it too. For years, they've championed a rules-based world order but the moment Israel breaks those rules - as international law experts argue it has with its pre-emptive strike on Iran - they go to water. Japan is the only G7 nation to condemn Israel's attack on Iran but has stopped short of sanctioning it. When a key enforcer of those rules, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says explicitly there is no evidence to indicate that Iran has a plan to develop nuclear weapons, justification for that pre-emptive strike looks as thin as George W. Bush's pretext for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Remember? The weapons of mass destruction no one could find. All we see, however, are bland appeals for de-escalation and a diplomatic resolution. Israel isn't chastised for its risky impunity. Instead, it's given tacit support with statements about its right to defend itself even if there's no evidence of an imminent threat. Applying that logic, was Russia justified in invading Ukraine because it perceived an imminent threat? Of course it wasn't. But in geopolitics what's good for the goose doesn't always apply to the gander. You only have to pause on the words of German chancellor Friedrich Merz to see how that works: "This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us." Dirty work indeed. It's not in anyone's interest for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Nor for Israel to have them for that matter. And it's certainly not in anyone's interest to have missiles raining down on nuclear facilities either. The world made that clear when artillery shells struck the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Yet we hear little about the potential for a nuclear calamity if these strikes continue. We're informed of radiation levels in Iran by the IAEA, the nuclear enforcement agency granted access to its facilities because the country signed up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In so doing, it agreed to play by the very rules others seem so keen to dispense with. HAVE YOUR SAY: How important is it to maintain a rules-based order in international affairs? Should other countries follow Japan's lead in condemning Israel for its pre-emptive strike on Iran? Are we repeating the same mistakes made in Iraq back in 2003? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - The Coalition's former leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, will join the Australian Banking Association as its chief executive, in his first major move outside politics. - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not go to The Hague for this week's NATO summit, with his deputy Richard Marles to represent Australia at the event as originally planned. - Artificial intelligence could disrupt more than just technology - it could widen the gender gap between boys and girls studying science, technology, engineering and maths. THEY SAID IT: "Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are." - Franklin D. Roosevelt YOU SAID IT: Our relationship with the US is not what it used to be. Perhaps it's time, Garry wrote, that we grew up and moved on. "Many of us, including various peace groups and LAW (Labor Against War) are not happy to be aligned with the US, the planet's most aggressive country since World War II," writes Judy from Newcastle. "AUKUS is a wasteful mistake. We don't have enemies, however, our sycophantic politicians allow increasing US bases, troops, ports and general infrastructure for a war. These threaten our security. Now is the perfect time to part company." There's still hope for the relationship, writes Arthur: "Donald Trump has only three and a half years to run, assuming he does not find his way to get re-elected. At the end of his term we may be able to start a process of reconciliation but we must never go back to being so vulnerable to the whims of a future president." "For these past 50 years I have been longing for Australia to be an adult country," writes Debora. "We have acted as a 'child' country: going from child to the parent UK - 'home' and empire, to child to the parent US from the faux ANZUS alliance to the craven AUKUS nonsense. Either we do that again - this time as a child country to China or we finally learn to stand on our own two feet - yes, with strong alliances and trade relationships but not as a supplicant to any nation." Bill from McKellar writes: "A marvellous piece of writing - one can only hope our politicians are subscribers to the Echidna. Ever since ScoMo tried to wedge the ALP with AUKUS, and the unquestioning embrace of it by the ALP, our foreign policy wheels have fallen off. So many of our past politicians have expressed views like yours - when will Albanese and Ley listen to them and wake up to what's happening?" This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to Who the hell does that? It was a hospital, for god's sake. Full of the sick, the immobile. Babies. Mothers. Innocents. The tyrants will pay a high price, he told the media, with as straight a face as he could muster - a challenge for someone whose mouth always struggles to suppress an ironic smirk. This was a criminal act, he said. We target military installations; they target civilians. Benjamin Netanyahu's condemnation of the Iranian missile strike on the Soroka Medical Centre in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba was meant to rally his nation, showing the world it was acting with high moral purpose. Instead, it reeked of hypocrisy. Just 40km away, in the rubble that was once Gaza, people have lost count of the number of times hospitals have been struck by Israel. Lost count, too, of the number of times Israel claimed the attacks - not just on hospitals but on schools and tented encampments - were targeting Hamas militants. The only count not lost: the 55,000 dead Palestinians. The day before the hospital was hit, dozens of Palestinians were killed in Gaza trying to get food from the shambolic Israeli-run aid distribution sites. Some of the dead showed injuries consistent with tank fire. Pot, kettle, black. Of course, the hypocrisy isn't limited to Netanyahu in this ugly slugfest between Israel and Iran. The leaders of our own democracies have been wallowing in it too. For years, they've championed a rules-based world order but the moment Israel breaks those rules - as international law experts argue it has with its pre-emptive strike on Iran - they go to water. Japan is the only G7 nation to condemn Israel's attack on Iran but has stopped short of sanctioning it. When a key enforcer of those rules, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says explicitly there is no evidence to indicate that Iran has a plan to develop nuclear weapons, justification for that pre-emptive strike looks as thin as George W. Bush's pretext for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Remember? The weapons of mass destruction no one could find. All we see, however, are bland appeals for de-escalation and a diplomatic resolution. Israel isn't chastised for its risky impunity. Instead, it's given tacit support with statements about its right to defend itself even if there's no evidence of an imminent threat. Applying that logic, was Russia justified in invading Ukraine because it perceived an imminent threat? Of course it wasn't. But in geopolitics what's good for the goose doesn't always apply to the gander. You only have to pause on the words of German chancellor Friedrich Merz to see how that works: "This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us." Dirty work indeed. It's not in anyone's interest for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Nor for Israel to have them for that matter. And it's certainly not in anyone's interest to have missiles raining down on nuclear facilities either. The world made that clear when artillery shells struck the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Yet we hear little about the potential for a nuclear calamity if these strikes continue. We're informed of radiation levels in Iran by the IAEA, the nuclear enforcement agency granted access to its facilities because the country signed up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In so doing, it agreed to play by the very rules others seem so keen to dispense with. HAVE YOUR SAY: How important is it to maintain a rules-based order in international affairs? Should other countries follow Japan's lead in condemning Israel for its pre-emptive strike on Iran? Are we repeating the same mistakes made in Iraq back in 2003? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - The Coalition's former leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, will join the Australian Banking Association as its chief executive, in his first major move outside politics. - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not go to The Hague for this week's NATO summit, with his deputy Richard Marles to represent Australia at the event as originally planned. - Artificial intelligence could disrupt more than just technology - it could widen the gender gap between boys and girls studying science, technology, engineering and maths. THEY SAID IT: "Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are." - Franklin D. Roosevelt YOU SAID IT: Our relationship with the US is not what it used to be. Perhaps it's time, Garry wrote, that we grew up and moved on. "Many of us, including various peace groups and LAW (Labor Against War) are not happy to be aligned with the US, the planet's most aggressive country since World War II," writes Judy from Newcastle. "AUKUS is a wasteful mistake. We don't have enemies, however, our sycophantic politicians allow increasing US bases, troops, ports and general infrastructure for a war. These threaten our security. Now is the perfect time to part company." There's still hope for the relationship, writes Arthur: "Donald Trump has only three and a half years to run, assuming he does not find his way to get re-elected. At the end of his term we may be able to start a process of reconciliation but we must never go back to being so vulnerable to the whims of a future president." "For these past 50 years I have been longing for Australia to be an adult country," writes Debora. "We have acted as a 'child' country: going from child to the parent UK - 'home' and empire, to child to the parent US from the faux ANZUS alliance to the craven AUKUS nonsense. Either we do that again - this time as a child country to China or we finally learn to stand on our own two feet - yes, with strong alliances and trade relationships but not as a supplicant to any nation." Bill from McKellar writes: "A marvellous piece of writing - one can only hope our politicians are subscribers to the Echidna. Ever since ScoMo tried to wedge the ALP with AUKUS, and the unquestioning embrace of it by the ALP, our foreign policy wheels have fallen off. So many of our past politicians have expressed views like yours - when will Albanese and Ley listen to them and wake up to what's happening?" This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to Who the hell does that? It was a hospital, for god's sake. Full of the sick, the immobile. Babies. Mothers. Innocents. The tyrants will pay a high price, he told the media, with as straight a face as he could muster - a challenge for someone whose mouth always struggles to suppress an ironic smirk. This was a criminal act, he said. We target military installations; they target civilians. Benjamin Netanyahu's condemnation of the Iranian missile strike on the Soroka Medical Centre in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba was meant to rally his nation, showing the world it was acting with high moral purpose. Instead, it reeked of hypocrisy. Just 40km away, in the rubble that was once Gaza, people have lost count of the number of times hospitals have been struck by Israel. Lost count, too, of the number of times Israel claimed the attacks - not just on hospitals but on schools and tented encampments - were targeting Hamas militants. The only count not lost: the 55,000 dead Palestinians. The day before the hospital was hit, dozens of Palestinians were killed in Gaza trying to get food from the shambolic Israeli-run aid distribution sites. Some of the dead showed injuries consistent with tank fire. Pot, kettle, black. Of course, the hypocrisy isn't limited to Netanyahu in this ugly slugfest between Israel and Iran. The leaders of our own democracies have been wallowing in it too. For years, they've championed a rules-based world order but the moment Israel breaks those rules - as international law experts argue it has with its pre-emptive strike on Iran - they go to water. Japan is the only G7 nation to condemn Israel's attack on Iran but has stopped short of sanctioning it. When a key enforcer of those rules, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says explicitly there is no evidence to indicate that Iran has a plan to develop nuclear weapons, justification for that pre-emptive strike looks as thin as George W. Bush's pretext for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Remember? The weapons of mass destruction no one could find. All we see, however, are bland appeals for de-escalation and a diplomatic resolution. Israel isn't chastised for its risky impunity. Instead, it's given tacit support with statements about its right to defend itself even if there's no evidence of an imminent threat. Applying that logic, was Russia justified in invading Ukraine because it perceived an imminent threat? Of course it wasn't. But in geopolitics what's good for the goose doesn't always apply to the gander. You only have to pause on the words of German chancellor Friedrich Merz to see how that works: "This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us." Dirty work indeed. It's not in anyone's interest for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Nor for Israel to have them for that matter. And it's certainly not in anyone's interest to have missiles raining down on nuclear facilities either. The world made that clear when artillery shells struck the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Yet we hear little about the potential for a nuclear calamity if these strikes continue. We're informed of radiation levels in Iran by the IAEA, the nuclear enforcement agency granted access to its facilities because the country signed up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In so doing, it agreed to play by the very rules others seem so keen to dispense with. HAVE YOUR SAY: How important is it to maintain a rules-based order in international affairs? Should other countries follow Japan's lead in condemning Israel for its pre-emptive strike on Iran? Are we repeating the same mistakes made in Iraq back in 2003? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - The Coalition's former leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, will join the Australian Banking Association as its chief executive, in his first major move outside politics. - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not go to The Hague for this week's NATO summit, with his deputy Richard Marles to represent Australia at the event as originally planned. - Artificial intelligence could disrupt more than just technology - it could widen the gender gap between boys and girls studying science, technology, engineering and maths. THEY SAID IT: "Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are." - Franklin D. Roosevelt YOU SAID IT: Our relationship with the US is not what it used to be. Perhaps it's time, Garry wrote, that we grew up and moved on. "Many of us, including various peace groups and LAW (Labor Against War) are not happy to be aligned with the US, the planet's most aggressive country since World War II," writes Judy from Newcastle. "AUKUS is a wasteful mistake. We don't have enemies, however, our sycophantic politicians allow increasing US bases, troops, ports and general infrastructure for a war. These threaten our security. Now is the perfect time to part company." There's still hope for the relationship, writes Arthur: "Donald Trump has only three and a half years to run, assuming he does not find his way to get re-elected. At the end of his term we may be able to start a process of reconciliation but we must never go back to being so vulnerable to the whims of a future president." "For these past 50 years I have been longing for Australia to be an adult country," writes Debora. "We have acted as a 'child' country: going from child to the parent UK - 'home' and empire, to child to the parent US from the faux ANZUS alliance to the craven AUKUS nonsense. Either we do that again - this time as a child country to China or we finally learn to stand on our own two feet - yes, with strong alliances and trade relationships but not as a supplicant to any nation." Bill from McKellar writes: "A marvellous piece of writing - one can only hope our politicians are subscribers to the Echidna. Ever since ScoMo tried to wedge the ALP with AUKUS, and the unquestioning embrace of it by the ALP, our foreign policy wheels have fallen off. So many of our past politicians have expressed views like yours - when will Albanese and Ley listen to them and wake up to what's happening?" This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to Who the hell does that? It was a hospital, for god's sake. Full of the sick, the immobile. Babies. Mothers. Innocents. The tyrants will pay a high price, he told the media, with as straight a face as he could muster - a challenge for someone whose mouth always struggles to suppress an ironic smirk. This was a criminal act, he said. We target military installations; they target civilians. Benjamin Netanyahu's condemnation of the Iranian missile strike on the Soroka Medical Centre in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba was meant to rally his nation, showing the world it was acting with high moral purpose. Instead, it reeked of hypocrisy. Just 40km away, in the rubble that was once Gaza, people have lost count of the number of times hospitals have been struck by Israel. Lost count, too, of the number of times Israel claimed the attacks - not just on hospitals but on schools and tented encampments - were targeting Hamas militants. The only count not lost: the 55,000 dead Palestinians. The day before the hospital was hit, dozens of Palestinians were killed in Gaza trying to get food from the shambolic Israeli-run aid distribution sites. Some of the dead showed injuries consistent with tank fire. Pot, kettle, black. Of course, the hypocrisy isn't limited to Netanyahu in this ugly slugfest between Israel and Iran. The leaders of our own democracies have been wallowing in it too. For years, they've championed a rules-based world order but the moment Israel breaks those rules - as international law experts argue it has with its pre-emptive strike on Iran - they go to water. Japan is the only G7 nation to condemn Israel's attack on Iran but has stopped short of sanctioning it. When a key enforcer of those rules, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says explicitly there is no evidence to indicate that Iran has a plan to develop nuclear weapons, justification for that pre-emptive strike looks as thin as George W. Bush's pretext for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Remember? The weapons of mass destruction no one could find. All we see, however, are bland appeals for de-escalation and a diplomatic resolution. Israel isn't chastised for its risky impunity. Instead, it's given tacit support with statements about its right to defend itself even if there's no evidence of an imminent threat. Applying that logic, was Russia justified in invading Ukraine because it perceived an imminent threat? Of course it wasn't. But in geopolitics what's good for the goose doesn't always apply to the gander. You only have to pause on the words of German chancellor Friedrich Merz to see how that works: "This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us." Dirty work indeed. It's not in anyone's interest for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Nor for Israel to have them for that matter. And it's certainly not in anyone's interest to have missiles raining down on nuclear facilities either. The world made that clear when artillery shells struck the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Yet we hear little about the potential for a nuclear calamity if these strikes continue. We're informed of radiation levels in Iran by the IAEA, the nuclear enforcement agency granted access to its facilities because the country signed up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In so doing, it agreed to play by the very rules others seem so keen to dispense with. HAVE YOUR SAY: How important is it to maintain a rules-based order in international affairs? Should other countries follow Japan's lead in condemning Israel for its pre-emptive strike on Iran? Are we repeating the same mistakes made in Iraq back in 2003? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - The Coalition's former leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, will join the Australian Banking Association as its chief executive, in his first major move outside politics. - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not go to The Hague for this week's NATO summit, with his deputy Richard Marles to represent Australia at the event as originally planned. - Artificial intelligence could disrupt more than just technology - it could widen the gender gap between boys and girls studying science, technology, engineering and maths. THEY SAID IT: "Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are." - Franklin D. Roosevelt YOU SAID IT: Our relationship with the US is not what it used to be. Perhaps it's time, Garry wrote, that we grew up and moved on. "Many of us, including various peace groups and LAW (Labor Against War) are not happy to be aligned with the US, the planet's most aggressive country since World War II," writes Judy from Newcastle. "AUKUS is a wasteful mistake. We don't have enemies, however, our sycophantic politicians allow increasing US bases, troops, ports and general infrastructure for a war. These threaten our security. Now is the perfect time to part company." There's still hope for the relationship, writes Arthur: "Donald Trump has only three and a half years to run, assuming he does not find his way to get re-elected. At the end of his term we may be able to start a process of reconciliation but we must never go back to being so vulnerable to the whims of a future president." "For these past 50 years I have been longing for Australia to be an adult country," writes Debora. "We have acted as a 'child' country: going from child to the parent UK - 'home' and empire, to child to the parent US from the faux ANZUS alliance to the craven AUKUS nonsense. Either we do that again - this time as a child country to China or we finally learn to stand on our own two feet - yes, with strong alliances and trade relationships but not as a supplicant to any nation." Bill from McKellar writes: "A marvellous piece of writing - one can only hope our politicians are subscribers to the Echidna. Ever since ScoMo tried to wedge the ALP with AUKUS, and the unquestioning embrace of it by the ALP, our foreign policy wheels have fallen off. So many of our past politicians have expressed views like yours - when will Albanese and Ley listen to them and wake up to what's happening?"

9 News

2 hours ago

• 9 News

The Republicans voicing dissent against Trump's strikes on Iran

Your web browser is no longer supported. To improve your experience update it here Before yesterday's military operation targeting nuclear enrichment sites in Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, rifts were beginning to form within the party over the prospect of the US joining Israel to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Trump had campaigned for his second term opposing US involvement in the Middle East, promising to adopt an "America first" approach if elected for a second term. President Donald Trump speaks after the US military struck three Iranian nuclear and military sites. (AP) He had also previously criticised the then-president Barack Obama, posting to social media that he would start a war with Iran because of his "inability to negotiate properly" and to "save face". Last week, Trump indicated Iran would have two weeks before he decided on whether to support Israel's efforts in Iran, but broke his own deadline after announcing the US had completed a "spectacular military success" in Iran. Within minutes of the news, strong condemnation began to roll in. Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, who has been leading a War Powers Resolution to prevent the US from becoming involved in another Middle East war in a rare cross-party alliance with California Democrat Congressman Ro Khanna, criticised the strikes as unconstitutional. "Congress has the sole authority to authorise war. Speaker Mike Johnson should bring our resolution to the floor for a vote immediately," he said on X. Georgia's Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right conservative and staunch Trump supporter, opposed the country's involvement. "Every time America is on the verge of greatness, we get involved in another foreign war," she said on X. "There would not be bombs falling on the people of Israel if Netanyahu had not dropped bombs on the people of Iran first. Israel is a nuclear-armed nation. Ohio Republican Warren Davidson said it was "hard to conceive a rationale that's constitutional". He later questioned when Congress would be weighing in on the matter. Trump, however, insisted he had the full support of the Republican Party. "Great unity in the Republican Party, perhaps unity like we have never seen before," he said on Truth Social. Thomas Massie (left) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (right). (AP) Democrats have condemned the President for ordering the strikes without approval from Congress, which they say went against Article I of the Constitution. "President Trump came into office promising to 'end the endless foreign wars.' Tonight, he took steps that could drag the United States into another one, without consulting Congress, without a clear strategy, without regard to the consistent conclusions of the intelligence community, and without explaining to the American people what's at stake," Democratic Virginia Senator Mark Warner said on X. "The Constitution makes clear that the power to authorise war lies with Congress." New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went further to claim that Trump's strikes were "grounds for impeachment". But one of the top Republicans in Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson, said Trump had evaluated that the "imminent danger outweighed the time it would take for Congress to act". "The President fully respects the Article I power of Congress, and tonight's necessary, limited, and targeted strike follows the history and tradition of similar military actions under presidents of both parties," he said on X. Donald Trump USA World Israel Iran nuclear Politics CONTACT US Auto news:Is this the next Subaru WRX? Mysterious performance car teased.