EDITORIAL: Impact of chaotic and fast-moving conflict spreads

As the Middle East conflict widens, the impact is already flowing through to this country.

There are an estimated 115,000 Australians stranded in the region after the cancellation of thousands of commercial flights. While the Government has pinned its hopes on those flights resuming soon, on Tuesday it revealed it had set up a task-force to evacuate Australians if the situation worsened and put them in further danger.

And Iran said on Tuesday it had closed off the Strait of Hormuz through which about 20 per cent of the world’s crude oil passes. Motorists will already be feeling the impact at the bowser.

Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Michele Bullock has suggested that the conflict could worsen Australia’s inflation crisis and even spark another interest rate rise in two weeks’ time before higher oil prices slow an already sluggish economy and push up unemployment.

As to the actual strikes on Iran, the Albanese Government has been adamant about Australia not being involved. On Monday Foreign Minister Penny Wong insisted Australia was “not central to the issues in the Middle East” and “didn’t participate in these strikes and we wouldn’t anticipate participating in the future”.

Australia has historically not just supported modern US-led conflicts, it’s also taken part in them. The involvement of our forces in the Iraq war and Afghanistan has left bitter aftertastes for many Australians.

But our personnel are actually already in the war zone. Defence Minister Richard Marles on Tuesday said more than 100 defence personnel were spread across the Middle East.

He also confirmed a report in The West Australian on Tuesday that our deployment included a headquarters at Al Minhad, just outside Dubai, which was hit by Iranian drones at the weekend.

The Australians there were safe, he said. It is less than satisfactory that it took a revelation by The West Australian to prompt the Government to admit — more than two days after the actual event — that Australian service personnel were in a base in the Middle East hit by an Iranian strike. This is clearly a case of Australians in harm’s way.

On Tuesday the situation became even more unclear as Iran broadened its retaliatory attacks and US President Donald Trump walked back his earlier claim that the military campaign against Iran would last “four weeks or less”.

“We have capability to go far longer than that,” he said, and refused to rule out deploying ground forces.

Many Australians would have no appetite for getting our defence personnel more directly involved in the region than they already are. But in a chaotic and unpredictable environment Australians will be looking to their leaders for clarity and transparency where that is possible within understandable operational requirements.

And there is also a need for reassurance the Government has planning at an advanced level as events continue to move at a pace.

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore.