Australia should be generous, not punitive, when it comes to those seeking to escape war |
As the people in the Gulf countries are now learning, having a great and powerful friend on bases across your territory and in your waters does not guarantee safety. Indeed it may make you a target.
It’s a lesson worth heeding. Australia has long been host to the crucial US communications facility at Pine Gap but is now spending billions to integrate its territory into the American war machine – most notably HMAS Stirling near Perth, which will be home to four US nuclear submarines and up to 1,000 American troops. Darwin has become a hub for tens of thousands of American troops on forward deployment.
At the beginning of the week the Iranian president issued a rare personal apology to neighbouring countries for the devastation and deaths they had endured in the first week of the war. He suggested that troops who had lost their commanders were firing at will, without authority, in a passionate attempt to defend their homeland.
Shortly afterwards his office issued a clarification. That did not mean that foreign bases in the Gulf States were off-limits to the Iranian military.
The US has about 750 bases around the world, 19 across the Middle East, home to tens of thousands of troops, so there are plenty for Iran to chose from. Already the largest base in Bahrain, and others in the UAE and Kuwait, have been........