Australian assistance in US airstrikes on Iran could make Australia a target for retaliation, nuclear experts say, as Australian government ministers decline to comment on the potential involvement of the secretive US-Australian surveillance base at Pine Gap in Sunday’s bombardment.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican), an Australian-founded organisation that won the 2017 Nobel peace prize, has warned Australia should not facilitate the attacks, “directly or indirectly”, and that “by assisting the US we risk becoming a target”.
“This includes the possibility of being targeted in a conventional or nuclear strike, particularly in the event of further escalation,” Ican said.
Anthony Albanese was asked repeatedly on Monday about Australia’s level of involvement in the strikes. “We are upfront, but we don’t talk about intelligence,” the prime minister told reporters.
“We’ve made very clear this was unilateral action taken by the United States.”
The department of defence, and the defence minister, Richard Marles, declined to comment. The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said there had been no request from the US for Australia to become “more involved” in the conflict, and that she “wouldn’t speculate” on Australia’s response if such a request came.
Last October, Australia supported the American bombardment of Houthi targets in Yemen “through access and overflight for US aircraft in northern Australia”. That attack was seen as a warning to the Iranian regime, for which the Houthi insurgency acts as a proxy.
Ican argued Australia was not a bystander to the recent US airstrikes, and that the joint US-Australian surveillance base at Pine Gap was integral to US nuclear targeting and war-fighting capabilities. Contribution to the attacks by Pine Gap could make Australia complicit and a target, Ican said.
“This risk is heightened by a global trend: nuclear-armed states are lowering the threshold for military action, including strikes on nuclear facilities, as seen recently in the US and Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear sites …
“As nuclear conflict becomes more plausible and less constrained by law or precedent, Australia’s involvement in nuclear planning or support operations could make it a target — not necessarily of Iran directly, but of its allies, proxies, or any adversary of Australia’s strategic partners.”
Gem Romuld, director of Ican Australia, called on the government to “immediately rule out any logistical support for these operations, including by denying permission for US B-2 stealth or B-52 bombers attacking Iran to transit or refuel in Australia, as occurred recently during a US mission to attack Yemen”.
“Australia must not facilitate, assist or enable these attacks – directly or indirectly. We cannot bomb a path to peace.”
Dr Margaret Beavis, Australian co-chair of Ican, said any Australian support for the US strikes would “actively undermine the global rules-based order”.
“We risk accelerating nuclear proliferation, we risk Pine Gap becoming a target, Tindal airbase [both in the Northern Territory] becoming a target.”
Senior research associate at the Nautilus Institute, Prof Richard Tanter, said it was a “realistic assessment” that the Pine Gap joint defence facility near Alice Springs might be involved in some capacity in Sunday’s bombardment.
Pine Gap, Tanter said, is a ground station for two types of intelligence satellites in geosynchronous orbits: signals intelligence satellites, and early warning infra-red satellites, some of which are stationed over the Middle East.
Data from the early warning satellites runs directly to the US through Pine Gap, without Australian intervention, Tanter said, adding that Australia was increasingly casting itself “as an enabler of American strategic projection”.
“It is very implausible to believe that Australia has any effective control over the tasking of those satellites, particularly the level of a veto.”
Former Labor senator and union leader Doug Cameron strongly criticised the government’s support for the “illegal” strikes.
Speaking as national patron for Labor Against War, Cameron said if the government was committed to the rules-based order it would condemn the US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, which some international law experts described as unlawful under the UN charter.
“We condemn the Australian government’s support for the aggression that Trump is using against Iran. We believe it is illegal, and we believe it’s inconsistent with the long-held Labor party’s support for the United Nations charters,” the former NSW senator told Guardian Australia.
Cameron said it was “inconceivable” the Labor government would support the Trump-ordered bombings had it not signed up to controversial Aukus security pact that he said “subjugated” Australian foreign policy to US interests.
The former left-faction heavyweight also criticised his own wing of the Labor party for being “mute” on the issue.
“It’s about time voices for peace once again dominated the Labor party … not this appeasement of the US and Israel,” he said.
Dr Sue Wareham, Australian national president of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW), argued Australia was “totally conflicted” in its support for the US strikes, agreeing the government was “really trying to appease the aggressors”.
MAPW, noting that the US, with more than 5,000 nuclear weapons, and Israel, with approximately 90 – were attacking Iran, which has zero, said western double standards over nuclear weapons were in “overdrive”.
Wareham said Iran’s potential development of nuclear weapons was a serious global concern, but argued that “the military [response] option rules out the diplomatic ones”.
Given Pine Gap’s critical role in US intelligence and targeting, it would be “fairly naive to think that Australia is not involved to that extent [of intelligence contribution],” Wareham said.
“As to whether we’re more involved, the government needs to be upfront about this, about all of its involvement with, and support, for the US military … we know that some of the American B-52s are nuclear armed, we don’t know if the B-52s at Tindal are, because the US won’t tell us, and the Australian government won’t ask.”
