Tag: AUKUS

Aerial view of oil tankers gridlocked in the Strait of Hormuz at dusk, black smoke rising from a distant refinery against an orange sky.

Persian Stalemate

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Thirty days in, Operation Epic Fury has achieved something genuinely historic: it has made the world less safe, energy more expensive, American alliances more threadbare, Iran more unified, and the US military more fractured — all simultaneously. Pete Hegseth is praying for Armageddon. His troops are filing conscientious objector applications. And in the Strait of Hormuz, the tankers stay put. Urban Wronski on the stalemate that no ground invasion can break and no prayer can win.

Russian nesting dolls representing layers of the US-Iran war: money, military force, great power rivalry, and Australia

The Stench of Desperation: Trump’s War on Iran and the Babushka of Greed, Ego, and Catastrophe

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To make sense of Trump’s war on Iran, imagine a Russian
babushka doll. The outer layer is the story the Pentagon feeds
us. Inside it: petrodollar entanglements, Kharg Island
war-gaming, the strategic patience of Moscow and Beijing,
Netanyahu’s fantasy of the purifying blow. At the very centre,
smaller than it should be, is Australia. Urban Wronski opens
all six layers and does not like what he finds.

US amphibious assault ship at sea with Kharg Island visible on the horizon, Persian Gulf

Iwo Jima, They Said: Marines Move on Iran as Tel Aviv Burns and the Alliance Dissolves

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Lindsey Graham is evoking Iwo Jima. Iran is mining Kharg Island’s shoreline. Seven thousand five hundred US Marines are days away from the Persian Gulf. The war is 26 days old, has cost $18 billion, and the White House’s official position is that they need about a month to “get Iran by the balls.” Australia is calling for de-escalation. The crease in the trousers remains arrow-straight.

Are we at War with Iran?

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INTERVIEWER: Are we at war with Iran?
ALBANESE: No.
INTERVIEWER: Then why did they bomb our base?
ALBANESE: Because they’re Iran.
One interviewer. One Prime Minister. Forty-five satellite dishes, three submariners, one Wedgetail aircraft, a peace negotiation bombed flat, a hundred and seventy schoolgirls, and a pocket square without a mark on it. A political interview in the tradition of Clarke and Dawe.

Editorial illustration of a knight in tarnished rusty armour standing at a press podium with an Australian flag, while a remote island detention centre is visible in shadow behind him.

The Photo-Op Refugee: Australia’s Selective Compassion

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Australia granted asylum to six Iranian footballers this week and the ministerial photographs were impeccable. Behind them sits a detention archipelago that cost taxpayers four million dollars per person per year to maintain, a Witness K prosecution that criminalised truth-telling, and legislation introduced the same week to ban entry to entire nationalities without individual assessment. Urban Wronski looks behind the photo opportunity.

Aerial view of a destroyed girls' school in southern Iran, rubble strewn across a courtyard, small backpacks visible among the debris, emergency workers standing back at dusk as smoke rises from the ruins.

Double Tap? Double Depravity

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As US and Israeli forces use double-tap airstrikes to kill survivors and first responders in Iran, Australia’s silence makes us complicit. Pine Gap is in the kill chain. Anthony Albanese had three hours to decide. He chose wrong.

Boxed in Like Tulloch

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We’re into the straight and Australia pounds against the rails, all muscle memory and destiny, everybody’s favourite, yet going nowhere. Boxed in like Tulloch. Truth, Due Diligence and Duty of Care have been scratched on veterinarians’ advice, leaving Spin, Pious Piffle and Plausible Deniability to romp home unchallenged.