Australia: don’t join the war crime |
Australia is expected to consider this week a request from the US to join a coalition of allies in a military effort, the ‘Maritime Freedom Construct’, to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Australia should refuse, even in the unlikely event that others join.
To join the latest US initiative to open the Strait of Hormuz, the Maritime Freedom Construct, while hostilities continue would make Australia an accessory to the international crime of waging an aggressive war.
The air and sea war by Israel and the US against Iran simply does not fit with any of the internationally recognised justifications for military action. One of the reasons given by President Trump for the bombing campaign (Operation Epic Fury) is that it was a response to a threat from Iran in the form of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
It was a long bow. Iran is a long way off even having weapons-ready uranium let alone producing the wherewithal to deliver a bomb to continental US. And even if Iran had developed a bomb and announced it, that would not justify an attack. India, Pakistan and North Korea have nuclear weapons. So do the US, UK, France, China and Russia. This does not justify any of them or their neighbours attacking any other of them with the aim of disarming the nuclear weapons.
The UN Charter (to which all nations have subscribed) has only two grounds for the use of military force against other nations: individual or collective self-defence following an armed attack; and authorisation by the UN Security Council to restore peace.
Neither applies in........