Shock tactics: Why Albanese had to send the Iranians packing

The expulsion of Iran’s ambassador to Australia, Ahmad Sadeghi, marks a shocking new low in diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It also highlights just how serious the crisis of antisemitism has become in Australia, after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and spy chief Mike Burgess revealed that Iran was involved in directing two antisemitic attacks in Australia, at the Adass Synagogue in Melbourne and the Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in Sydney.

Diplomatic expulsions of any sort are extraordinarily rare.

In the cautious world of diplomacy, there are usually multiple steps that are taken before expulsion, including carefully worded protests, diplomatic demarches (essentially an ambassador getting a dressing down from a foreign minister) and even dispatching an ambassador to their home country for a spell to signal discontent.

A 2022 Parliamentary Library research paper highlights just how rare expulsions are. Since 1983, a handful of lower-ranking Russian, Iraqi and Syrian diplomats have been expelled after being suspected of spying, while one South African and one Israeli were also sent packing.

But as Albanese made clear, “this is the first time in the post-war period that Australia has expelled an ambassador”.

By booting out Sadeghi and three other Iranian officials, the federal government has skipped all the interim steps available to it and gone straight to the diplomatic equivalent of the nuclear option.

This suggests two things.

First, that ASIO boss Mike Burgess is absolutely certain of the intelligence to hand, which showed Iran used third parties both in and outside Australia, with some links to criminal organisations, to direct and put into effect two of the most serious antisemitic attacks in Australia in years. Burgess also said that investigations are ongoing and that Iran may have had a role in other attacks.

Second, it underscores the fact that the government’s rhetoric about wanting to stamp out antisemitism and ensure social cohesion – despite the criticism it has faced from sections of the Jewish community, the federal opposition, and the Israeli government – is genuine.

Government concerns about foreign interference in Australia’s domestic politics and civil society have been growing for close to a decade, and former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull introduced tougher laws that sought to tackle foreign powers interfering in Australian society.

Burgess warned in his 2022 “threat assessment” speech that “espionage and foreign interference has supplanted terrorism as our principal security concern”, while in his 2023 speech he said a “hive of spies” from an unnamed foreign country, later revealed to be Russia, had been disrupted and deported.

But there is a big difference between deporting a low-ranking Russian apparatchik and expelling a nation’s chief diplomat.

This is also Albanese’s clearest signal of how serious his government is about tackling antisemitism at its source.

Australia’s Jewish community has been sounding the alarm about the rise of antisemitism in this country ever since the October 7, 2023 attacks.

It was only a week ago that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu labelled Albanese “weak” and castigated him for abandoning Australia’s Jewish community, after Albanese announced Australia was joining like-minded allies and moving towards recognising a Palestinian state.

Today’s move was not weak.

Australia and Iran are neither allies nor major trading partners.

There is a small Iranian-born diaspora in Australia of about 85,000 people, though it’s likely that many of those Iranian-Australians are fierce opponents of the vicious theocracy that has ruled Iran since the 1979 revolution that deposed the Shah.

The practical effect on the Australian economy and the diplomatic relationship may not matter much.

But symbolically, the expulsion of Sadeghi is a big deal because of the message it sends to Iran, and other nations such as China and Russia engaged in foreign interference operations on Australian soil, that they will be called out and publicly humiliated if caught.

Australia might be on the other side of the world to the Middle East, but these Iranian influence operations are a reminder that we are on the front lines when it comes to foreign interference.

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