“Already, there is too much loose talk of war,” said then-US President Barack Obama in 2012. Seven years later, that statement continues to ring true, particularly when reading analysis of US-Iran policy. In these pages, scholars are continuing to epitomise such “loose talk”, putting forth a legal argument against Australia joining America in a conflict against Iran.
Fortunately for now and the foreseeable future, there is no war for Prime Minister Scott Morrison to join. America continues to call for diplomacy, even as the regime bombs vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, and even as it shoots down American drones in international skies.
There is, however, an American economic pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic. Washington’s goal is to get Tehran to abandon its dangerous course of terrorism, mayhem, and nuclear blackmail. But the goal of this economic campaign is not even regime change. America’s goal is a bigger, broader, and better diplomatic agreement.
This should be Australia’s goal, too.
Since the US withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal in May of last year, Washington has relied on its most powerful – and peaceful – tools of coercion to get Iran back to the negotiating table for a genuinely comprehensive agreement: sanctions. Iran initially sought to absorb and outlast this sanctions pressure, hoping that US President Donald Trump loses his re-election bid in 2020.
Read the article by Jonathan Schanzer and Behnam Ben Taleblu in The Sydney Morning Herald.