The suggestion that Australia, or the Australian Labor government, nominate Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, though one coming from a senior and influential minister, has some drawbacks that suggest it should not be proceeded with during this budget cycle. It is quite likely that such a nomination would secure the everlasting gratitude of the American Commander in Chief, probably resulting in effusive welcomes and perhaps some favours or introductions when senior Australian ministers, or the Prime Minister, visits Washington.
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It would be a standing reminder to the current Administration that the United States had no greater, or more obliging and servile friend, than Australia. On the other hand, it is almost certain that Trump will not get the Prize, no matter how permanent and enduring a general world peace he brings. In such a case, Trump's rage and anger might settle on Australia, particularly if he comes to believe either that Australia did not push the case hard enough, or that it had nominated him as a joke. It may, moreover, occur to some other nations that they could curry favour with Washington by supporting our nomination, in ways that could embarrass the nomination. For example, if the motion were seconded by Taiwan, Sierra Leone and Hungary.
The problems could be evident even before that. Our nomination would, for example, remind Trump that Australia (like most of Europe) has failed to take up his invitation to join his Board of Peace, either with a delegate, or with the $A1.43 billion contribution into Trump's personal accounts. (This on top of the biennial renewal of Australia's membership, due in the coming budget.) Trump's pleasure at the nomination would be likely to have him putting more, not less, pressure on Australia about such contributions, if only because he has repeatedly demonstrated that when it comes to money coming in his own direction, he is entirely without shame.
The link with peace, and Australia's role in arguing his case might embolden him to demand that Australia take an active role in his "peace initiatives". But he might also want Australia to be a co-promoter of those of his schemes which seem to double either as business opportunities for various of his friends and relations, or New York businessmen said to be adept at driving bargains. He often boasts of their bargaining styles and deals, including side deals for their own purposes along the way.
This does not suggest that he would be asking Australians, let alone senior Australian ministers or diplomats to be involved in grubby bargains able to be described as corrupt or an obvious conflict of interest. Ministers and diplomats are sensitive to the requirements of openness, transparency and being guided only by the public interest. But there is a risk that he could be seen to be using credible outsider partners to whitewash deals, to deny impropriety or inside knowledge and to vouch for bona fides.
Team USA has no place for Australian input
Australia normally welcomes opportunities to become involved in international diplomacy focused at resolving conflict, and in bringing warring parties together. But an association with a Trump peacemaking enterprise is not likely to show Australian skills to best advantage. Instead, it will primarily involve nodding when any member of the Trump Cabinet speaks. Some senior Australian ministers are skilled at this, but it rarely reflects well on Australia's reputation, or their own.
The Trump modus operandi usually involves unusual features with which, sometimes, Australia might not want to be associated. He has reinforced bargaining processes by threats to impose unilateral tariffs and penalties. With Iran, and Venezuela, he has employed air raids, kidnapping, and assassinations by Special Operations teams and expropriation of national assets as a part of his bargaining process. He has given and withheld access to vital supplies, including access to food, medicines and shelter.
He is said to have demanded that parties make contributions to his peace process, not obviously regular, and not obviously later accounted for. His bargaining style has seemed erratic and has sometimes depended on a constantly changing mood. Thus, for example, he has sometimes slapped increased tariffs on one side or another, or both, to force concessions, some of which have not been directed at ending hostilities. Sometimes he has reversed or increased these, apparently by whim in a short period.
This has been evident in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the "peace" that has been achieved for the Palestinians in the Gaza strip. Australia, along with most other industrialised nations, has publicly objected to this process, consistently with its general policy of standing deeply behind the parapets and not drawing attention to itself.
It goes without saying that Trump is not greatly given to consultation with his partners, or those whom he has conscripted to his ends. He wants conformity to his plan; one explicitly designed as being in accord either with the interests of the US (rather than Australia's) or his own. He does not like to share the spotlight, or moments of triumph, though he is often happy enough to leave to others most of the dirty work leading up to something he can call a deal. By the time he has described this deal, it may bear little resemblance with what has been agreed during negotiations (for example over the Gaza deal), but the razzamatazz and the momentum of his announcements will often sweep objections away or be described by him as reneging on arrangements already agreed to.
We will be associated with deals we never made or knew about and promises we cannot keep.
In prospect thus for Australia is public "association" with deals in which we have not been much involved, or even much listened to. This is a serious risk that would compromise Australia's capacity to be seen as an honest broker, a nation acting independently of the US, or one to be trusted. There is a risk, instead, that it will be seen merely as America's "deputy sheriff", and hired muscle. This is not in Australia's interests, whether at domestic, regional or international level. There is ample evidence that much damage to the nation's reputation among our neighbours has already been done. It is accentuated by impressions that the foreign minister, Penny Wong, has been given a small wading pool - the Pacific - as her own zone of responsibility, while being expected to parrot either America or Israel's position on "bigger" occasions.
The danger for Australia of any involvement or public association is not so much of collapsing accords and renewed struggle, though these are probably inevitable. There's also a serious risk of Australia's being forced to take sides in conflicts about the nature of agreements made. Australian policy has been to avoid getting too close to the action. But close involvement in a peace process may inevitably see Australia as some sort of guarantor of the deal made. This can involve being a regular umpire or commentator on alleged breaches (inevitably) (by both sides). As often as not this will be without any local power to enforce its opinion, and, as often as not, the risk of being contradicted by the US, which will have a different grand view of the arrangement reached, and be unconceded by any misbehaviour by the party it has championed, such as Israel.
The biggest risk is not that agreements that Australia has helped broker will fall apart, though that is always a clear and present danger given Trump's tendency to look at headline points instead of details. But when conflict resumes, much of the bitterness and anger will fall on Australia, rather than the US. This will suit parties at a disadvantage, because the US is too big to bluster against, the other side, who will want to keep room to manoeuvre, and even the US itself, which will want everyone to love them and be happy to see Australia as the fall guy.
We have an example of how this can work from the conflict with China originally provoked by Australia's taking a lead in demanding an international inquiry into the spread from China of the COVID virus. This conflict came to blend with efforts by Australia's defence and intelligence establishment to allege that war between the US and China was becoming inevitable, and that China was daily becoming more threatening and more menacing. Australians took a lead in condemning and criticising China; but they were acting as mouthpieces for America's interests, and, on both occasions, addressing the situation through American eyes. China was becoming increasingly annoyed, pointing out to Australia that it should judge events according to its interests, not America's. And, when China acted, it acted against Australia, with trade bans, not against the US. A direct conflict with Washington might have raised the temperature too quickly.
It was Australia that bore the burden of import bans, increased tariffs, and quotas, when China decided to swat the Australia flea instead of the bigger irritant. It should be remembered that the US showed to Australia its gratitude and solidarity for taking a leading role and speaking loudly in its interest by seizing some of the markets from which Australia had been excluded.)
With the current conflict between Israel and Iran, and the US and Iran, Australia is not (or pretends it is not engaged). Any Australian involvement, whether through American bases or communications interception is secret and can be denied by outright lying, something at which Australia has long been adept. Australia was not consulted about either nation going to war, although it had long been critical of Iran for its oppression of its population, and its continuing attempts to develop nuclear power. And its role in fomenting conflict with Israel through Lebanon, Gaza and Syria. Parts of our intelligence establishment believe (on undetailed Israeli evidence that ASIO never questions) that Iran stirred up attacks on Jewish property, an allegation that saw some Iranian diplomats expelled from Australia.
Policies of cowardice and fear of putting forward our own interests.
Trump has been vague about the casus belli, and about his war aims. He has sometimes emphasised one alleged Iranian sin, then later denied that this was what spurred him to go for war. He has urged the Iranian people to rebel and throw out its oppressive theocratic government given that he has killed most of its leadership. (The cynic, of course, should remember the long and glorious history of American efforts to cause regime change around the world.) Of course, Trump does not have to have a single cause, and it suits him to be deliberately vague about his plans. It rather looks as if his timing was dictated by Israeli pressure and deadlines.
MORE JACK WATERFORD:
Observers from near and far, including Australia, are ambivalent about what has occurred. Essentially, they are relieved that the regime seems to have fallen, and that the means of making nuclear weapons has been debased, assuming it had not been debased before as Trump had then claimed. But it is obvious that America, and Israel, have been in breach of international law in the war they have started and carried out. It is a repeat of its attack on Venezuela. Put in another way, if Russia's invasion of Ukraine was a clear breach of international law, so too is America and Israel's attack on Iran. Neither of the aggressors show any sign of contrition or even caring. The world, or the UN will not punish either.
It is a further example of Trump's pursuit of his new doctrine - that might is right. It is also yet another repudiation of the stock phrase about a rules-based order which had attempted to stop war. This may serve America's interest, for the moment. But it does not serve the interests of Australia, nor those of America's NATO partners, nor Japan, Korea or the nations of Southeast Asia. Australia's attempt to play both sides of the fence is not from knowledge of right or wrong. It is from cowardice, tinged with a sense of impotence, a fear of being shouted at, of being bullied and left alone to face its enemies. Our leaders are not worthy of their followers.
- Jack Waterford is a former editor of The Canberra Times. jwaterfordcanberra@gmail.com
