Citizens Electoral Council of Australia Media Release

Wednesday, 30 September 2015

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has repeatedly conceded in the past few days that the policy pursued by Australia’s major allies to resolve the Syria crisis, premised upon the overthrow of Assad, hasn’t worked.

Bishop told The Weekend Australian, Given Australia’s significant contribution to the humanitarian crisis in Syria and Iraq and our involvement in militant operations against Daesh, it is inevitable that we will play a role as an advocate for a political solution in Syria. It is evident there must be a political as well as a military solution to the conflict in Syria. There is an emerging view in some quarters that the only conceivable option would be a national unity government involving President Assad.” (Emphasis added.)

Initially, Bishop’s statements coincided with a shift by the Obama administration towards dialogue with Russia over Syria, including the first telephone call between the US Defence Secretary and Russian Defence Minister since April 2014, and Barack Obama’s agreeing to meet Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the UN this week; the UK government has similarly adjusted its rhetoric.

Suddenly, however, Obama has dug in his heels, to once again insist on regime change in Syria as a prerequisite to peace. Given that the US Defense Intelligence Agency’s own documents from 2012 have revealed that Obama and his British, Saudi and Turkish allies knowingly created ISIS in order to topple Assad, it is clear that Assad is not the obstacle to peace, Obama is.

The question now is, will the Australian government backflip on the statements its Foreign Minister has made in the last few days, to fall into line with Obama’s dangerous new mood?

Until his death in March this year, former Liberal Party Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser argued passionately, including in his 2014 book Dangerous Allies, that Australia must turn away from its strategic dependence upon Great Britain and the United States, and become an independent nation with an independent foreign policy.

That has never been more urgent than now. If Julie Bishop rescinds her recent statement under orders from the US, Australia will be contributing to a potential war with Russia.

Russia will not accept the overthrow of Assad, because they know Assad is a target only because he is the ally of Russia. It must be noted that Assad’s ostensible war crimes happened after Obama and co. backed an uprising against him in 2011, following their overthrow and brutal murder of Qaddafi in Libya. In other words, Obama was already targeting Assad for regime change before any alleged war crimes.

Russia is offering to work with the West to defeat ISIS in a way that is legal under international law: through Russian action in Syria, where it is present legally at Syria’s invitation, working with the US-led coalition action in Iraq, operating legally at Iraq’s invitation. This is the best, and only, solution to the crisis that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions more. But it requires the US and UK to drop their regime change agenda, which anyway is completely discredited after the total folly of Iraq and WMDs, and the disaster that Libya has become.

Australia can play its role in the shift that is required to achieve peace, by ending our subservience to Anglo-American foreign policy; we can start by sticking to the approach stated by Bishop this week.