Foreign Minister Penny Wong chants “rules based order” like a sacred hymn.

Order? In reality, it’s a squalid, pseudo-legal jargon for a world where might is right. While the US drops depleted uranium on Iraqi children, arms Israeli apartheid and fuels insurrections in Iran, any nation that dares assert its independence is crushed under a tonne of bricks. In Iran’s case, a hail of “precision strikes” designed to wound, maim and cause lifelong agony. Meanwhile, in Gaza, the International Court of Justice has declared Israel’s actions plausible genocide, ordering an immediate halt to atrocities and unimpeded humanitarian access. The US and its allies, including Australia, have ignored every ruling, proving once again that the “rules based order” is nothing more than a mafia protection racket, and we’re collecting the rent.

Depleted Uranium is often said to drop but it’s part of the super new bullets or “rounds” in use. The A-10 Warthog’s GAU-8 Avenger, for example, fires 30mm DU rounds. Tank rounds (e.g., the US M829 series) use DU in their cores to penetrate enemy armour. So kids get a spray of it, rather than a drop.

When these rounds hit a target, they aerosolise into fine, toxic dust, which can be inhaled or contaminate soil and water, leading to long-term health risks (e.g., cancer, birth defects) and environmental damage.

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The Rules Based Order A Licence to Kill

Penny Wong stands in Parliament, her voice trembling with moral certainty. To her, Australia stands with the brave people of Iran as they struggle against an “oppressive regime”. She invokes the rules based order like it’s a force field against tyranny, a beacon of justice in a murky, chaotic and mercenary world. Just one snag. The rules apply to everyone else. Only.

When the US bombs Iranian nuclear sites, it’s a “strike”. When Iran defends itself, it’s “aggression”. When the US funds insurrections, arms rebels and sabotages economies, it’s “promoting democracy”.

When anyone else does it, it’s “terrorism”. And as the US sprays depleted uranium, children become cancer statistics? Birth defects are an inter-generational curse, it’s “collateral damage” a euphemism for war crimes.

This isn’t a rules based order. It’s a licence to kill, and Australia through our defence secretary Greg Moriarty, our intelligence agencies and our slavish alignment with US foreign policy is complicit at every step.

And now, as the International Court of Justice declares Israel’s actions in Gaza a plausible genocide, ordering Israel to halt its military operations and allow humanitarian aid, the US and its allies, including Australia, have done what they always do ignored the ruling and doubled down.

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Loaded Language “Regime” vs “Government”, “Strikes” vs “Slaughter”

Let’s talk about the language of empire. The US and its press never refer to the “Iranian government”. It’s always the “Iranian regime” a term that strips legitimacy, implies tyranny and justifies intervention. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, a brutal monarchy that beheads dissidents and bombs Yemeni school buses, is a “key ally”.

Israel, an apartheid state with nuclear weapons, is a “vibrant democracy”.

When the US bombs a Syrian hospital, it’s a “precision strike”. When Iran fires a missile in self defence, it’s “terrorism”. When the US funds, arms and trains insurgents in Iran such as the Network of Iranian Activists for Democracy (NAD), which distribute Molotov cocktails to protesters and boast about “turning Tehran into a warzone” it’s “supporting democracy”. When Iran arrests those same insurgents, it’s “crushing dissent”.

This isn’t reportage. It’s propaganda, and it’s designed to manufacture consent for the next war.

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The Dirty Weapons Engineered to Maim, Designed to Terrorise

The US doesn’t just kill. It maims. It terrorises. It leaves behind a legacy of suffering so grotesque that it defies the term “war crime”. What’s happening is worse than death. Generations suffer. The US has used depleted uranium munitions in every major Middle East conflict since the Gulf War. Why? Because DU is dense enough to pierce armour, but its real legacy is cancer, birth defects and environmental poisoning.

In Fallujah, where the US used DU in 2004, doctors reported a 14 fold increase in birth defects; babies born with two heads, missing limbs and organs outside their bodies. The called the city “the new Hiroshima”. In Syria, the Pentagon confirmed using DU in 2015, despite international condemnation. The result? Radioactive dust that lingers for decades, poisoning soil, water and people. In Iraq, the US ignored its own guidelines, firing DU at unarmoured targets, buildings and even troops turning cities into toxic wastelands.

The US knows DU is a war crime in slow motion. It just doesn’t care.

The US military has set out to maximise suffering. From cluster munitions banned by 100 countries, but still used by the US to white phosphorus, which burns through flesh to the bone, the goal isn’t just to win wars it’s to leave populations traumatised, disabled and dependent.

Cluster bombs scatter hundreds of tiny bomblets, many of which fail to explode until a child picks one up years later. White phosphorus doesn’t just burn. It melts flesh and re-ignites when exposed to air, ensuring victims suffer excruciating, prolonged deaths. Drones don’t just kill targets. They terrorise entire communities, turning the sky into a permanent threat and leaving survivors with PTSD for life.

This isn’t warfare. It’s sadism, dressed up in the language of “national security”.

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The Australian Connection Greg Moriarty and the Art of Complicity

Australia isn’t just a bystander to this horror-show. We’re in it up to our necks. Greg Moriarty, our defence secretary and soon to be ambassador to the US, cut his teeth in Iran. As Australia’s ambassador to Tehran from 2005 to 2008, he briefed George W. Bush on Iranian politics at the height of US sabotage operations, assassinations and economic warfare against Iran.

Moriarty’s stellar career is a masterclass in how Australia punches above its weight in the US empire from intelligence sharing to military drill, from sanctions enforcement to diplomatic cover for US aggression.

While Ms Penny Wong chants the “rules based order” mantra, Mr Moriarty, gets the gong: he is off to Washington to ensure Australia remains locked in step with the world’s biggest bully. Meanwhile, as the ICJ rules that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute plausible genocide, and as the US and Australia continue to arm and fund Israel’s apartheid regime, the hypocrisy would knock you over. The “rules based order” isn’t about justice. It’s about power and who gets to wield it without consequences.

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Historical Parallels Chile, Guatemala, Iraq, Syria and Now Iran (and Gaza)

This isn’t new. The US has been skittling independence for decades. In Chile in 1973, the CIA sabotaged the economy, funded strikes and backed a coup against Salvador Allende all to protect US corporate interests. The result? Seventeen years of Pinochet’s torture chambers.

In Guatemala in 1954, the US overthrew Jacobo Árbenz because his land reforms threatened United Fruit Company. The coup led to forty years of genocide.

In Iraq in 2003, the US lied about WMDs, invaded and left a million dead and a failed state all for oil and control.

In Syria from 2011 to today, the US armed “moderate rebels” many of whom were jihadists, turning a protest movement into a proxy war that killed half a million people. And now, in Gaza, the US and its allies have ignored ICJ rulings, continued to arm Israel and watched as well over 67,000 Palestinians are killed, with women and children making up nearly half the victims. The ICJ has ruled that Israel’s actions constitute plausible genocide, yet the US and Australia have done nothing but double down on their support.

And now, Iran. The playbook is the same. Sabotage the economy, infiltrate the protests, provoke a crackdown, then scream “human rights” while preparing the bombs.

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The Hypocrisy of “Human Rights”

The US and its allies including Australia don’t give a fig about Iranian or Palestinian lives. If they did, they wouldn’t be starving Iranians with sanctions that block medicine, food and fuel. They wouldn’t be funding insurgents who turn protests violent, ensuring the regime cracks down harder. They wouldn’t be threatening war while pretending to care about “the brave Iranian people”.

As Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi puts it

“The US doesn’t want democracy for Iran. It wants a puppet government one that will sell our oil to American companies.”

And as for Penny Wong’s “rules based order”? It’s a joke. The only rule is what’s ours is ours, and what’s yours is negotiable, preferably at gunpoint. Trump says he’s negotiating with Iran. By holding an armada to its head?

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What Comes Next?

The US armada off Iran’s coast isn’t there to protect protesters. It’s there to finish the job. Will Australia keep cheering from the sidelines? Or will we finally ask who gave the US the right to police the world? Who decided that American lives matter more than those of Iranians or Palestinians? And why are we helping them do it?

If we don’t speak up now, we’re next. A rules based order doesn’t protect middle powers. It serves them up on a plate; eats them alive.

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Coda What You Can Do Because Silence Is Complicity

So here we are. The US armada circles Iran, the bombs are primed and the propaganda machine hums along, smoothing over the cracks with the curiously neutral yet positive language of “precision strikes” and “regime change”.

Meanwhile, our own leaders, Wong with her rules based order incantations, Moriarty with his seamless transition from Tehran to Washington play their assigned roles in the empire’s grand theatre. The script is written. The only question left is what are we going to do about it?

This isn’t just Iran’s fight. It’s ours. Because when the rules are rigged, when the language is weaponised and when the weapons are designed to maim those whom they cannot kill, silence isn’t neutrality it’s complicity.

So let’s make some noise. Pick up the phone. Write the email. Send a letter.

The alternative? To watch more bombs fall—and pretend we didn’t see it coming?

Call tyranny for what it is. While we are still permitted to express dissent.

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