By Stephanie Dowrick
In 1991 I edited, along with StJohn Kettle, a book called After the Gulf War: For Peace in the Middle East. It makes sobering re-reading. This was the war that George Bush Snr thought was a great idea. It was supported by the then Hawke Government with much self-serving rhetoric. Why? And perhaps also, what came out of it? After all, a mere dozen years later in March 2003 it was George Bush Jnr justifying the invasion of Iraq, again with heated rhetoric of support from the then Howard Government. Between those wars, punitive sanctions were placed on the Iraqi people, making ordinary life difficult yet without bringing down the Hussein regime.
That second Bush-led war, the Iraq War that still continues, was justified on an erroneous assertion that Saddam Hussein had hoarded "weapons of mass destruction". To protect the world from the consequences of that, and to bring a US vision of democracy to Iraq, war was "necessary". What came out of it? What lessons were learned? What would ensure greater care in any future conflict before and not after bombs were dropped, cities destroyed, lives lost?
Many Australians admire the consistency with which consecutive governments have supported United States' war willingness in the Middle East. I am not one of them.Credit: AP
Those simple questions deserve the deepest consideration. Yet can we trust that this government, or indeed the Opposition, is asking them? "Bombing ISIS" apparently supports a US request. We are told that these will be strikes against Islamic State military depots, plus control and command targets. That it may be difficult to identify such targets accurately where the war front is suburbs, factories, schools, hospitals, homes should be sobering. It should be even more sobering when we consider the history of hostility to those fleeing these conflict zones.
It was 1991 when political scientist and ANU Professor Michael McKinley pointed out in our book that Australia's involvement in international conflicts "have been induced by a given stimulus and habits of mind which are themselves never deeply examined". The consequences of this remain serious.
The social as well as the economic costs ought to shock us into fresh thinking about the nature and conduct of our involvement, at the very least. McKinley went on to say, "In the particular circumstances of Australia's Gulf policy the indications on the public record are that consultation was limited, alternatives never seriously canvassed, consultation with regional neighbours either ignored or attended to in the most perfunctory manner, truth economised upon…"
Perhaps more startling still, given current uncertainty as to whether President Obama requested Australian troops to add "airstrike capacity" in Syria or if this was Prime Minister Abbott's initiative, McKinley reports that in 1991 the Australian government's response to the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq was "to beseech the US government to request Australian involvement".
Many Australians admire the consistency with which consecutive governments have supported United States' war willingness in the Middle East. I am not one of them. The uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad that began in March 2011 has displaced or killed approximately half of Syria's entire population. And it is not the West and certainly not Australia but countries adjoining Syria now stretched to their limits receiving those leaving.
Lebanon, for example, has a population of only four and half million people yet is home to more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees with no hope of returning to safety any time soon. "Airstrikes against Islamic State", ordered so confidently by people whose knowledge of the Middle East is at best theoretical, can only increase that instability.
Surely it is to those internally displaced people camps of Lebanon, Jordan or Iraqi Kurdistan that our decision makers should go. It would take a special kind of courage for politicians to witness what war brings in crowded land-bound countries. It would also take courage to shift their mindset away from accelerating military action and towards restoring greater aid and safety. This means genuinely comprehending what brings conflict and displacement as one war bleeds into the next. It means listening to those most affected, bringing desperate people legally to safety, and supporting them with dignity until they can return home. That shift in priorities is unfamiliar. But this may be the alternative that must, finally, be canvassed.
Dr Stephanie Dowrick is a writer and interfaith minister.