Whether you say it or not, we’re in this war now, prime minister

Anthony Albanese isn’t quite ready to admit it, but as of Tuesday, Australia is formally committed to participating in the military campaign targeting the Iranian regime.

The provision of a high-tech Wedgetail surveillance aircraft and medium-range AMRAAM defensive missiles, following a request from United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, is highly unlikely to be the intervention that changes the course of the war.

But the decision to greenlight the request, accompanied by the work done to offer asylum to five members of the Iranian women’s national football team, makes Australia a more likely target in the future if the regime manages to survive.

This Iranian regime is already no friend of Australia. It was only last August that spy agency ASIO revealed Iran had been behind antisemitic attacks on the Continental Kitchen in Sydney and the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne.

Australia is also home to generations of Iranian-Australians who have escaped the theocratic government since it came to power in 1979.

Offering this limited support to the UAE will also keep Albanese in the good graces of US President Donald Trump, who woke him up in the early hours of Tuesday morning for a 40-minute chat.

Though Albanese offered next to no detail about the conversation, it’s a fair bet that much of it involved the prime minister delicately correcting the president that Australia had, in fact, already offered the women asylum before moving on to the war in the Middle East.

Arguably, Trump’s mix-up could have been avoided if the president had appointed an ambassador in Canberra by now to keep him in the loop.

In his press conference first thing on Tuesday morning, flanked by ministers for defence, foreign affairs and energy, flanked by Australian flags, the prime minister framed the Australian contribution as passive support.

“My government has been clear that we’re not taking offensive action against Iran. And we’ve been clear that we are not deploying Australian troops on the ground in Iran,” he said.

“Australia has supported action aimed at preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and preventing Iran from continuing to threaten international peace and security. Our position remains that we do not want to see the conflict continue to escalate, and we call on all parties to uphold international humanitarian law and to protect civilian life.”

The subtleties of offering only defensive missiles to take out drones and of providing surveillance aircraft rather than jet fighters are likely to be lost on Iran’s leadership.

Australia might not be pulling the trigger, but we are handing over the weapons and will be offering intel that could help tilt the balance of the war towards our allies, the US and Israel.

Trump flagged on Tuesday morning that the US-Israeli war on Iran will be over “very soon” and said it was simply a “short-term excursion”. That might be true.

But if you’re living in one of the Gulf states – the UAE alone has so far shot down more than 1500 missiles and drones – that promise is cold comfort.

As long as the hardliners remain in power in Iran, it is impossible to accurately predict what or where the regime could strike next, even if the “hot” phase of the war ends soon, as Trump suggests.

He can describe it however he likes, but there’s no mistaking what it means.

Anthony Albanese has now followed Donald Trump into a Middle East conflict.

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