Australia backs Trump in Israel-Iran war

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Speaker 3 Hey there, I'm Erin Park, and my new podcast, Expanse, Nowhere Man, is about why in 1999 a young American wandered into one of Australia's most deadly landscapes, alone with barely any water, on purpose.

Speaker 3 Spanning three decades and two continents, this story took me places I never imagined.

Speaker 4 Stick around at the end of this episode of Politics Now to hear a taste of what I've got for you.

Speaker 5 Donald Trump says he's totally obliterated Iran's nuclear capabilities, with the US launching strikes on key Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend.

Speaker 5 But back home, the government is trying to walk a fine line on the conflict, taking some time to find its position over the surprise attacks.

Speaker 5 And while the Prime Minister now says Australia supports the US's action, which he described as unilateral, he's also urging diplomacy and de-escalation from all parties.

Speaker 5 But as Iran signals reprisals to the US attack are on the table, there are increasing concerns the regional war will escalate into a global conflict. Welcome to Politics Now.

Speaker 5 Hi, I'm Patricia Carvelis.

Speaker 1 And I'm Raph Epstein from ABC Radio Melbourne. You sure are.

Speaker 5 And Raph Donald Trump finally ended speculation, anticipation. Will he, won't he? Will he, won't he? When will he? He's not really going to do it.
Is this going to be a taco incident?

Speaker 5 And he did it over whether the US would get involved in the Israel-Iran war on the weekend, launching, I think it's fair to say, probably surprise-ish attacks on three key Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities.

Speaker 5 The U.S. President has declared the attacks were a spectacular success.
There's a big question mark now though. Is it one and done or is there more to come?

Speaker 5 Iran is warning the US to brace for possible retaliation, which you would expect. But are we in a new frontier of war and conflict now?

Speaker 1 Well, we are because Iran has been hit by America. So that's number one.
Number two, let's look at the players in the region the way they are responding.

Speaker 1 There are billboards on the freeways in Tel Aviv that say thank you, Mr. President.
Benjamin Netanyahu was saying it's the awesome and righteous might of the states, right?

Speaker 1 So it was Benjamin Netanyahu who went on American TV and said, I understand America first. I don't understand America dead, right? Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed for this and he's one of the.

Speaker 5 He's the MAGA whisperer.

Speaker 1 So we can get into, yes, because there's a huge dispute inside Trump's base and Netanyahu spoke to that base.

Speaker 5 Netanyahu. He got in the middle and manipulated it in many ways.

Speaker 1 But just an indication on your question about New Frontier, I noticed the Turkish president is saying that countries in the region should not listen to Israel's poison.

Speaker 1 Iran's president is saying the Americans must receive a response to their aggression. And you've got the Iranians talking to Putin.

Speaker 5 So, yeah, there's no doubt. We're in a new place.

Speaker 1 How much worse it gets? I spoke to some people in the government. They were saying.
They expect it to get worse before it gets better, but they don't expect it to drag on.

Speaker 1 That could be an incredibly courageous assumption, but we don't know.

Speaker 5 Well, this is the thing, right? I mean, clearly, I think it's fair to say that Donald Trump also doesn't doesn't want it to drag on. He doesn't want to be dragged into a boots on the ground

Speaker 1 to stop wars,

Speaker 1 start them.

Speaker 5 That's right. And I believe that that is his instinct from all of his past behavior, that he doesn't want to be dragged into a long forever war.
But the question is, does it happen anyway?

Speaker 5 This is the big question, because you can want all sorts of things. Mission accomplished, said, you know, George W.
Bush.

Speaker 5 You can say that, but are you drawn in because of a series of domino effects that then force your response and then escalate a situation?

Speaker 1 Well, it's got to be said, the push, Netanyahu, it's been led by a country that is really good at escalating a conflict and they're finding it really bloody hard to establish an off-ramp.

Speaker 1 There's significant, 400 people have died in the last few weeks in Gaza trying to get food. Like, that's not a great situation, right? They've been shot at by Israeli tanks and soldiers.

Speaker 1 So they're being led there by a country that hasn't worked out how to resolve that. But to go back back to first principles, because you said Donald Trump's instincts aren't for a longer conflict.

Speaker 1 Probably right, because it's 10 years since he came down the golden escalator. That was last week, 10 years ago.
But what is Donald Trump's strongest instinct?

Speaker 1 Donald Trump's strongest instinct is to be at the center of a drama. This is a reality TV show.
Everybody needs to turn to him to find out what happens next.

Speaker 1 Is that instinct stronger than the isolationist Steve Bannon wing of MAGA? Or does is the actual course of the conflict determined by the fact that Donald Trump relishes having the world hang

Speaker 1 and wait for his every word? That's actually a really, that could be a really significant determinant of whether or not we get a longer conflict.

Speaker 5 Whether we get a longer conflict is yet to be determined is the truth. The success of the operation itself over the weekend.
Let's get into that language.

Speaker 5 Yeah, we still don't know if it's been successful. I mean, Donald Trump tells us it's been successful.

Speaker 5 There is some, there's a competing competing narrative about that, about whether the Iranians had already,

Speaker 5 you help me out here, they shifted.

Speaker 1 So firstly, did they shift the stuff?

Speaker 1 Let's go back a bit. This stuff in Ford, which was misspelled by Donald Trump on his social media as Forgo, but this base 20 years ago was above ground.

Speaker 1 20 years ago, the Americans started to develop the GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrator. Otherwise, you've probably heard in the media.
Bunker busters. Bunker buster bomb.

Speaker 1 So for 20 years, the Iranians have been sinking this stuff further under the ground and the Americans have developed a weapon.

Speaker 1 Donald Trump says they've used, I think it's sort of 14, 15, 16 of these weapons. They are the size of a mini bus.
They're more than six meters long. They weigh three times as much as a minibus.

Speaker 1 You drop one down the other. It literally is a bit like that scene of the original Star Wars where you drop the missile in the hole and hope it finally gets underground.
Thank you.

Speaker 5 You've just made this podcast understandable for my children.

Speaker 1 Well, it's really important that your children understand because it's their future. But seriously, Donald Trump used the words totally and completely obliterated bases like Forto.

Speaker 1 They are not the words used by the serious people in the room, right?

Speaker 1 So General Dan Kane, who actually carried out the attack, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the word he used was severe damage and destruction.

Speaker 1 It's clearly a setback, but the great unknowns is what they have left, how does that influence what comes next in Iran?

Speaker 1 So there's a whole lot of different political, even ethnic, sectarian responses to the conflict, but what is left, how hard it is to rebuild a nuclear program does that actually influence what comes next in iran i mean there's too many unknowns there's a too way too many unknowns and then there's the other element now as the us went in to do this quite you know radical unprecedented action which changes the course of everything

Speaker 5 they at the same time were signaling through their their you know intermediaries that this was a one and done situation, that they weren't seeking regime change.

Speaker 5 That was the language that was being used only 24 hours ago.

Speaker 5 Now, we're recording this middle of the day Monday, and already that shifted to, you know, make Iran great again by the president in his social media, which is a regime change

Speaker 5 idea, not just about

Speaker 5 getting rid of nuclear facilities.

Speaker 1 That's the Israeli idea over the last few weeks as well. Don't forget, Israel always conceded they couldn't do what America did.
Israel has attacked banking systems, crypto exchanges, police stations,

Speaker 1 TV stations.

Speaker 1 Netanyahu has spoken to the Iranian people directly in Farsi, in the language of their most famous and sort of renowned protest language. So Iran wants that.
I mean, the reason it is so

Speaker 1 concerning and hard to predict is it's really clear what Israel wants. America appeared reluctant.
They have now not been reluctant to take this step. Are they reluctant to take the next step?

Speaker 1 And I think most, I'm wondering how many people were around 2003. I was.

Speaker 1 You know, a war based in a conspiracy theory led to hundreds of thousands of dead people in Iraq. The conspiracy theory was that there was al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Speaker 1 What actually was the consequence of that war? We created al-Qaeda in Iraq and that became the Islamic State. So these things, like we're not just talking about unknowns in the abstract.

Speaker 1 We have a real-world experiment of what happens when you interfere. That's not to say America is going to do anything like that.

Speaker 5 You rightly cite that as an example and perhaps precedent or sort of comparable moment.

Speaker 5 But even in that comparable moment, there was, and I heard you making this point on Insider, so let's go there before we get to the Australian response, which is actually really fascinating.

Speaker 5 But even in the comparable situation, and you're right, the weapons of mass destruction, clearly,

Speaker 5 you know, not fact,

Speaker 5 deeply problematic, but they did go to international theatres, the UN, to try to make the case. Now that's not even part of the equation anymore.
The international law isn't even playing a role now.

Speaker 1 There's two things that aren't playing a role. What is our current state of knowledge about Iran's weapons? Iran does not have a nuclear weapon.

Speaker 1 The Supreme Leader of Iran has not restarted the nuclear weapons program.

Speaker 1 So they're not my words.

Speaker 5 They're not my words. They're not yet.
They are tools.

Speaker 5 But are they close?

Speaker 1 Let me finish my point. Iran doesn't have a weapon and the Supreme Leader has not restarted the program.
Okay, so they're the words.

Speaker 1 That is all we know at the moment about America's intelligence assessment and for what it is worth.

Speaker 1 I was told that when the National Security Committee of Cabinet met on Friday, that assessment hadn't changed. Right? That assessment hasn't changed.

Speaker 1 There's no fantastic new volume packet of information, as far as I can tell, that's come from either Israel or America to change Australia's assessment.

Speaker 1 So our best level of knowledge, as stated by the Director of National Intelligence, is they don't have a weapon and they haven't restarted the program. I have no idea if that is right or wrong.

Speaker 5 Well, Donald Donald Trump has said that his own director

Speaker 1 that she was wrong. That she was wrong.
She's changed her tune. But the point isn't whether or not my quotes represent our current knowledge.

Speaker 1 My point, which I tried to make on Insiders, and thank you for noticing, no one's asking the question. No one knows which intelligence agency has made that assessment.

Speaker 1 And that's a really, really important assessment. If you don't know the level of the threat,

Speaker 1 You also can't judge whether or not this is a breach of international law. International law effectively says, PK is about to take a swing at me in the bar, I'm allowed to bash her on the nose first.

Speaker 1 Is PK right next to me in the bar, drunk and about to take a swing at me, or has she not even walked into the saloon? And it's just a rumor on the street.

Speaker 1 Now that, I mean, I know that's a sort of a brutal or rough or cartoonish metaphor, but it's really important.

Speaker 1 So the fact that in America and Britain, no one has been asking, what is the level of intelligence that we have? Do we agree with Israel?

Speaker 1 That's crucial because that means that this is the only way you can get a handle on is this actually something that you can do in self-defense?

Speaker 1 Is there enough there to get you over the international authorities?

Speaker 5 Well, this is the fascinating part. What we're seeing around the world, including from the Europeans, is quite a muted response,

Speaker 5 certainly not a condemnation of Donald Trump's actions. And that is really, I think, consequential and interesting.

Speaker 1 Can I make a point before we get to our response? You're allowed.

Speaker 5 You're allowed.

Speaker 1 America, Britain, Australia, we say China can't do that because it's against the rules. Australia stands up for a rules-based international order based on conventions, rules, and laws.

Speaker 1 China can't do that with their navy ships near us because it breaches some sort of convention and rule.

Speaker 1 If Israel and America are allowed to throw out that rule book, next time China tries to salami slice its way towards Taiwan, next time there's a dispute between China and Vietnam over an island, and China says, no, this is an existential threat to us,

Speaker 6 What do we do? Well, what do we say?

Speaker 5 I think it's fair to say that the rules are not operating as planned. This is a new world order.
We are not really in the post-World War II.

Speaker 1 Does anybody care that maybe we should as a democracy be standing up for the rules and the laws?

Speaker 5 Well, someone does, and I'll tell you who in a second because it's just broken as we record. Firstly, to our response, which is important.

Speaker 5 Following the strikes on Sunday, local time, the Albanese government wasn't forthcoming with a press conference, which some of us were waiting for. I certainly was.

Speaker 5 I said to my kids, oh, sorry, I'm not really watching the soccer game. I'm waiting.
The Prime Minister might stand up. That's how I live my life.
He didn't. Okay.

Speaker 5 They put out a statement, but it was a pretty benign statement. I mean, unless you were, you know, you're a snoop of massive proportions.

Speaker 5 You really had to read that statement a hundred times to figure out what are they trying to say because it was deliberately neutral. It was deliberately benign.
Okay.

Speaker 5 So that you didn't really know what they were saying. Now, less than 24 hours later, we've seen the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister change their tune quite significantly.

Speaker 5 They've backed the US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. At the same time, they haven't, you know, it's not fair to say they've completely smashed their old position.

Speaker 5 They still are urging peace and diplomacy, but also the unilateral action, which doesn't really fit within the traditional model of what you would call peace and diplomacy.

Speaker 5 That's what they're saying already when I, in terms of foreshadowing already a backlash, former Labor Senator and union leader Doug Cameron, who was very close to the Prime Minister for a long time, I think I've hung out with both of them together, like they are.

Speaker 5 Now he's a very anti-war campaigner, has unleashed on the Albanese government over its support for these US strikes on Iran,

Speaker 5 you know, saying he works on this platform of labor against war, saying that it's against international law, essentially, really condemning labor. So the big question is.

Speaker 5 Why has Labor decided to go down this road?

Speaker 1 I think on the way. So I I think you're right to say it's unusual they didn't have a press conference yesterday.
I'm not sure how, I do get a bit frustrated with the

Speaker 1 is the coalition's position different to Labor's position? It is, you know, because the point we are in the election cycle, and I'm not sure that's the most important question.

Speaker 1 Their language they choose is important.

Speaker 1 I think they would describe it. These are my words, not their words, but I did talk to people inside government about this over the weekend for insiders.

Speaker 1 They're not huge fans of unilateral action. They don't think it's a good idea to breach international law.

Speaker 1 They do, you know, they've shown publicly how upset they have been with Israel in the past.

Speaker 1 On the other hand, and again, this is my language, in the grand scheme of things, for Israel, sorry, for Australia, formerly, Israel's the good guys, Iran's the bad guys,

Speaker 1 despite the criticism Australia has. So this is me sort of being a ventriloquist for the government.
We don't love it. We hope it's limited.
We hope it's contained.

Speaker 1 Yes, you're right, it could get a hell of a lot worse.

Speaker 1 But given the influence we actually have in the region, and given our long-term ability to influence what Israel is doing in Gaza, and given the fact that we really don't want Iran to have a weapon, despite the things I said about intelligence, we'll cop this one.

Speaker 1 We'll say, sure, okay, we're with you. And we'll worry about things later.
I actually interviewed Peter Lay, who used to be the chief of army, was chief of army during the 2003 invasion.

Speaker 1 And I actually said to him, well, hang on, what about international law? Like, what happens when China does something like this? And he, he basically said to me, what happens when China does that?

Speaker 1 Well, where are we? We're in strife, but we'll have to think about that then. So I think that that's the attitude that I reckon Anthony Albanese and his National Security Committee would have taken.

Speaker 1 Not awesome, not imperfect. Deal with the world as it is, not as we would like it.

Speaker 1 And I think there was a bit of yesterday, and again, I'm guessing.

Speaker 1 Let's see what happens. Why come out?

Speaker 5 Ah, you nailed it. So it's interesting.

Speaker 5 What we're seeing from the Albanese government, now you're right, right, that in terms of comparing to the coalition, I still think it's relevant because the other one is the alternative government, right?

Speaker 5 But their view is that the government took too long and

Speaker 5 I think that the government did delay. And so it's not...

Speaker 1 And the government's response to that is who cares what the opposition says.

Speaker 5 Absolutely. And they're probably right that right now in the political cycle, you know, no one's going to lose sleep over it.
But.

Speaker 5 Why does the government take too long? Two reasons. First one, I think the Prime Minister does want to distance himself very actively from the idea that he's a player in the Middle East.

Speaker 5 He did it consistently over the war in Gaza, didn't he? Like, we're not a main player.

Speaker 5 We're not a main player. And on that, he's actually right, right?

Speaker 5 So there's the sort of camp which is wanting us to flex our muscle more and be the sort of most hairy-chested middle power in the world.

Speaker 5 And his view is, I stay in my lane, I try and achieve what's best for Australia's interests.

Speaker 1 Well, so footnote to what you're saying, or parentheses to what you're saying, they only criticise Israel and other countries do. What's the point of doing it?

Speaker 6 That's right, that was my next point.

Speaker 5 Sorry, forget it.

Speaker 1 No parentheses, it's the next paragraph.

Speaker 5 No, no, no, but you are correct. I think their view is:

Speaker 5 let's wait. What are our allies? What have a light country? And if you look at what light countries are currently doing, well, on that, Australia is on solid ground.

Speaker 5 Even the Europeans are rather, which is what I was saying earlier, rather muted on this. You're not seeing widespread condemnation and outrage over this.

Speaker 5 Partly, I think that's because it was targeted, right?

Speaker 1 That's

Speaker 5 it's limited. It is.

Speaker 1 America's role in this is limited. That's right.
However, so all of that is true on the surface. They've taken a real world view of this.
What can we do? What can we control?

Speaker 1 We'll condemn Iran and get them to come back to the negotiating table because that's what the Europeans are saying. We won't condemn what Israel is doing because Europe hasn't condemned them.

Speaker 1 What's the point of doing that? However, I think there is also an acknowledgement.

Speaker 1 If you are worried about this, confused at home, you've got no idea what comes next, you're really worried about how erratic Donald Trump is, so are are they. So

Speaker 1 this is their version of a hard-headed, pragmatic, real politic response to chaos.

Speaker 1 And it is a very real and urgent problem that in the middle of the year 2025, it actually doesn't matter what NATO thinks. The United Nations Secretary General is not even mentioned.

Speaker 1 He's condemned this. No one cares.
So

Speaker 1 if the United Nations needed any more nails in its coffin,

Speaker 1 this is the thing to deliver the nail in that coffin.

Speaker 1 And the Albanese government, everyone inside that government, and I think every government around the world are going, oh, right, how do we deal with this?

Speaker 1 And the big thing here, the big thing here is the entire computer we have, if you've got a computer on your desk that is called the Defence and Intelligence and Security Establishment that America, sorry, the Defence Establishment that Australia runs, if it's a computer on your desk, you can't turn it on without America.

Speaker 1 It's not whether or not you speak, you need new speakers from America or Europe. You can't turn the thing on.
Neither can Europe. Ukraine can't fight a war without America.
None of us can.

Speaker 1 Everything Israel was doing in Iran,

Speaker 1 they are American bombs. They are American weapons systems.
They are relying on American intelligence and American satellites. There is no fallback.
So yes, we're in trouble.

Speaker 1 International law doesn't have much worth. We've got an incredibly erratic president.

Speaker 1 But over the weekend, I think the Australian government went, yeah, well, the intelligence doesn't justify what Israel is doing, but Israel's doing it. What is our response to that?

Speaker 1 Does the world care what Australia's view of the intelligence is? Probably not. We should be asking the question, but it's that hard-headed response.

Speaker 5 But it's the other assessment, too, being back to first principles. What does Australia stand for? Well, Australia believes that

Speaker 5 Iran shouldn't be developing a nuclear program. Australia has been consistent on that.
And so does this potentially dismantle something that we are against? Well, yes, it does.

Speaker 5 So on balance, even though it wouldn't have been our first option. Yes.

Speaker 1 Just as well on not talking yesterday. I think you're 100% right.
And I'm getting texts actually while we're talking. They're not jumping to anyone else's timetable.

Speaker 1 Like, what did the Australian government need to come out yesterday? Was there a lack of material for the news media yesterday? Did the Australian government need to answer questions yesterday?

Speaker 5 Nope, not yet. On this, I have sort of a grudging respect for that strategy, actually, because it might be frustrating for journalists.

Speaker 5 I mean, it is frustrating for me on a sort of you know day-by-day process.

Speaker 5 But on a broader kind of

Speaker 5 making not having an opinion about everything immediately,

Speaker 5 I don't think it's so unwise to take your time and make an assessment about whether it's in your country's best interest to say something immediately about something rather than to operate in a immediate kind of news cycle.

Speaker 1 So you're right. What the opposition says matters, right? So the contest between the government and the opposition is important.
That shouldn't be the only question.

Speaker 1 Whether or not Israel is upset with Australia when we say things, that's a question you can ask. That's not the only question.
If we lean towards what are the actual merits of what is being done,

Speaker 1 when we say we have principles, how do we apply those principles to the merits of what is happening in the world? If we lean into that conversation, all of that said,

Speaker 1 I would still like there to have been. I was trying to count how many questions there were today to Penny Wong and to the Prime Minister today being Monday about the intelligence.

Speaker 1 There weren't really that many. James Glender asked one on ABC News Breakfast of Penny Wong.
There were a few questions at the PM's Press Conference.

Speaker 1 I know they're not going to answer those questions, and it's not even the answers.

Speaker 1 If there is a general expectation, as there was in 2003, that every time you face the media, you will actually be asked, if you're a government representative, what does the intelligence actually say?

Speaker 1 What's our assessment of what it says? Does what we're doing comply with international law?

Speaker 1 If there is an expectation that is a significant part of the conversation, we're better off, regardless of the answers. That is not a running main theme of the conversation.

Speaker 5 I don't think that's a good thing. So we're in a situation now where we are waiting, really.

Speaker 5 We're in a waiting game to see what further escalation might look like, what the world might look like in a week, in a month, in the future.

Speaker 1 Well, don't forget, there's a whole lot of people in Australia. They've got relatives in Israel.
Observation

Speaker 1 and Iran. And I spoke to two people today.
One woman, Zahra, in Epping, she actually came out here on the Tampa. She was a toddler on the Tampa.

Speaker 5 Remind people, because we have younger listeners, and you and I are getting so old that we need to explain the Tampa.

Speaker 1 The Tampa was a ship that picked up a boatload of asylum seekers. They became the definition for actually a parallel question to what we're talking about now.

Speaker 1 Was Australia in 2001 going to change the rules this time about the way we treated asylum seekers? John Howard did change those rules.

Speaker 5 Yes, he did, and it was the international obligations of this ship that saved asylum seekers.

Speaker 1 But if we're talking about, are we changing the international rules of conflict right now? In many ways, it's the same. But I brought Zara up because her parents have been out here for some time.

Speaker 1 They went back to Iran a few years ago. They're Australian citizens.
They are in the holy city of Qom. It's one of Iran's biggest cities.
It is a really important center of Shia religious learning.

Speaker 1 It's not that far far from Frida. I think it's about 80 Ks from the bunker that the Americans bombed.

Speaker 1 So there are people in this country, in a city like we are in right now, Melbourne, desperately waiting to hear the news of what's going on. And we're in a different place.

Speaker 1 And if I can end on a final point, Tucker Carlson got a brief mention over the weekend, and we glossed over him on Insiders. We're in a bad place.

Speaker 1 If someone like that, who I don't actually regard as a good faith actor in the American media landscape, if he's the only one saying to a proponent of war, do you actually understand the country you seek to topple?

Speaker 1 That's really important. I can't name every ethnic group in Iran.

Speaker 5 No, but I've got to say on that clip between, that went viral between Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz, what alarmed me is that I definitely could answer more of the questions than Ded Cruz. Sure.

Speaker 5 Wasn't that alarming, though?

Speaker 1 But in some ways it comes.

Speaker 5 He's a lawmaker.

Speaker 1 Because I would always expect you to answer more questions than that.

Speaker 5 Well, no, but he's a lawmaker.

Speaker 1 100%. 100%.

Speaker 5 Sure, you'd expect a journalist who covers lots of issues or a lawmaker to know more than somebody who does another job that doesn't.

Speaker 1 What I am saying, though, is that when Australian journalists were asking questions of an Australian Prime Minister during Vietnam, they understood intricately the different ethnic groups, the different compositions of different fighting forces in Vietnam based on political ideology, wealth, ethnicity, all of those things.

Speaker 1 There is a paucity, a shallowness of the understanding understanding from the people asking those in power questions.

Speaker 5 Let's go to one other angle I think is worth discussing, which I've already mentioned, but I want to talk about it from another angle, which is regime change and the potential for

Speaker 5 regime change in Iran. Based on instinct, a lot of reading.
and some conversations with some key people. I do know many Iranian people who have family back home.

Speaker 5 It is my view that when Bibi Netanyahu tells you to stand up to the Iranian regime, that is not the guy who's going to inspire you to take action.

Speaker 5 That is not to say that many Persians, there are people in Iran who hate that regime and who are sympathetic even to Jews. I mean,

Speaker 5 this is a group of people pre-1979

Speaker 5 who had great relationships. There were actually a thriving Jewish community there, right?

Speaker 5 But the idea that Benjamin Netanyahu is the one to help you rise up and regime change is lunatic.

Speaker 1 I reckon you can say, what, four in five Iranians, maybe nine in ten Iranians really despise the regime.

Speaker 1 One thing I was really struck by when we spoke to this woman who came to Melbourne, lives in the suburb of Epping, came out on the Tampa as a toddler.

Speaker 1 She said people hate the regime, but this is making people rally around the regime. So that's just one person's perspective.
That's a real danger, but...

Speaker 5 That's a real danger. It's a real danger.

Speaker 1 But one way to understand it maybe, Yemen is a proxy war. Yemen has been at war with itself for about 10 years.
Yemen is a small place at the end of a peninsula.

Speaker 1 As horrible and as horrific as that situation is, and don't forget the Houthis are based there and their role in the conflict between Israel and Gaza and everything.

Speaker 1 That's a proxy war funded by outside countries. If you have a situation in Iran, it's 100 million people.
They sit between Iraq and Afghanistan. They sit between the Middle East and Central Asia.

Speaker 1 If 100 million people get embroiled in a conflict where, I don't know, maybe you have the Revolutionary Guard Corps, who are sort of the country within a country. They've got everything.

Speaker 1 They've got banks and police forces and their own supermarkets and everything.

Speaker 1 If they are on one side and I don't know, the Saudis are funding proxies on the other side, it's a country of 100 million people. So we are playing with fire.
This is terrifying.

Speaker 1 I think it's probably likely and sort of all of the serious people at the moment go, it'll tamp down. The regime will continue kind of crippled.
Okay, maybe,

Speaker 1 but we are really in uncharted territory. We really are.
And if you look at something like Yemen and you put that on the map of Iran.

Speaker 1 That's not a world that I really think is a nice place to be.

Speaker 5 No, and I think that we are genuinely in territory we have not seen.

Speaker 5 And that's part of, I think, the sort of hairy-chested nature of the response from Donald Trump, too. No other U.S.
president has used the bunker busting bombs.

Speaker 1 Well, can I just say right about that?

Speaker 1 No other American president has bombed Iran because in every other situation when an American president was asked to do that, Hamas and Hezbollah had hundreds of thousands of rockets aimed at Israel.

Speaker 1 So just deflate that ego a bit.

Speaker 5 Absolutely. What he's done, you've done some great comparisons.
This morning I was explaining it to my daughter.

Speaker 5 You know, our car trips to school are basically about the wars and famines mostly.

Speaker 5 She loves it, actually, because she's interested in in the world.

Speaker 5 And I said to her, it's kind of like, yeah, the tough kid in school picking on a horrible, awful child, right? But with absolutely little muscle at the moment.

Speaker 1 But that little friend used to have lots of big mates. Yeah.
Doesn't have them any big money. Exactly.
So now the bullies decide to pick on the little child as a parent.

Speaker 5 Because it's an easy time to pick on it. And that's the timing of that.

Speaker 1 That's a decent, that's a really decent comparison.

Speaker 5 Raph, I've really enjoyed this. I'm just going to hit you up.
Next week, I know you're very busy doing your aged care special that you guys are doing. Can you still do the podcast, though?

Speaker 5 I'd like to talk about aged care and a few other things.

Speaker 1 Sure, let's do it.

Speaker 5 Let's do it. You're meant to do that offline, but I think most of the listeners of politics now know I have zero normal problems.
You know why I said yes?

Speaker 1 I'm speaking out of school here, okay? I did a debate last week in the Victorian Parliament between the media and the politicians. It's an in-camera, Chatham House rules, lot of fun.

Speaker 1 But at the end of that, there were some politicians watching. Can I say who they are? No, I won't say who they are.

Speaker 1 The chair, everyone was applauding, and the politicians who were watching who are very senior in Victorian politics, the chair said, I can see those guys applauding loudly, loving this.

Speaker 1 Will you guys do this next year? And they both sheepishly nodded their head and said, yes. Great.
All right.

Speaker 5 We've locked it in. Thank you so much for listening to Politics Now Today.
I'll be back in your feed tomorrow for more analysis and there'll be so much more to talk about.

Speaker 5 And of course, questions to the party room for Thursdays the party room abc.net.au Fran will answer them I'll try as well see you Raf see you later PK

Speaker 7 soaring temperatures a lack of water and sand dunes every 500 meters it's one of the most inhospitable places on earth it's August 1999 and something strange is happening in the Australian outback when I got there it was just organized chaos it's one of the most extensive searches ever mounted in the great sandy desert

Speaker 9 A well-to-do young American has dumped his belongings and walked out into the Great Sandy Desert.

Speaker 10 A white guy from America, what hope has he got?

Speaker 2 They'll be looking for a body.

Speaker 4 He sent a postcard to his parents in America just saying, I'm heading into the desert.

Speaker 6 Goodbye.

Speaker 4 Triggering a media sensation and one of the biggest searches Australia had ever seen.

Speaker 11 Once the Americans arrived, it became a lot more bizarre. We really need to be what we call sempra gumby, always flexible.
He insisted that people use his radio handle, gunslinger.

Speaker 11 Are you taking the piss?

Speaker 9 But there's one problem that no one's got an answer for. How do you search for someone who doesn't want to be found?

Speaker 13 I felt it was his choice to choose not to come out of the desert. I knew he couldn't be content with living a life unless he did this.

Speaker 9 My name is Erin Park and I've been obsessed with this story for years.

Speaker 12 And I'm not the only one.

Speaker 9 Why would a fit, intelligent young man with everything to live for plunge into one of the deadliest landscapes in Australia on purpose?

Speaker 11 It's very easy to dismiss it as crazy, but I think when you dive deeper into it, you see that it's not crazy.

Speaker 9 It's a story spanning three decades, two continents and some strange encounters.

Speaker 8 I really don't know how I started off in the desert. in northern Australia looking into this and now I'm in bloody Alaska looking for a porcupine.

Speaker 14 Every little thread was even more glittery, and sparkly, and fascinating, and quick.

Speaker 9 And it polarised opinions the world over. Were his actions selfish or inspired?

Speaker 11 The backlash was pretty fierce.

Speaker 9 And it turns out this desert where Robert Baguki went missing is keeping other secrets.

Speaker 8 What Robert Berguki did here is just the tip of the iceberg.

Speaker 10 We've got a lot of people missing. It remains a mystery, you know?

Speaker 9 At a time when so many of us feel lost, what's the most extreme thing you do to feel found?

Speaker 8 The idea of being out here alone scares the hell out of me.

Speaker 2 I ain't no Robert Baguki, that's for sure. And at what cost?

Speaker 10 Death will come, and I'll be ready for it.

Speaker 9 This is season five of Expanse, Nowhere Man.

Speaker 4 Find it on the ABC Listen app and all the usual places.