Australia’s presence in Iran was a lifeline for the Western world. Now, that era is over

It is not every day that we hear of bold diplomatic actions by one country against another. Yet in designating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organisation and suspending political ties with Iran over its involvement in antisemitic activities in Australia, this is what the government has just done.

Following confirmation that the Revolutionary Guard was tied to the attacks on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne and Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in Sydney, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the alleged actions “totally unacceptable” and confirmed that for the first time since World War II, an ambassador would be expelled from Australia.

This is a far cry from the time when Iran’s pro-Western authoritarian monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, visited Australia in the early 1970s to warm reception. As the leader of an oil-rich and strategically significant country in the Middle East, Canberra courted him for lucrative trade and economic deals. It also flies in the face of the decades that Canberra has spent maintaining relations with the radical Islamic regime since it replaced that of the Shah following the Iranian revolution of 1978-79.

The Australian embassy in Tehran remained as a cockpit of information-gathering about the Islamic regime’s domestic and foreign policy behaviour for not only Canberra, but also for several other governments within the Western alliance.

Despite the regime’s growing enmity with the US and Israel, as well as periodic tensions with America’s European and Canadian allies, Canberra long found sustaining good diplomatic relations with Iran at an ambassadorial level to be in our national interest. Given the factional composition of the Islamic regime, Canberra was encouraged whenever the moderate or reformist cluster rose to the helm, as was the case under presidents Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) and Hassan Rouhani (2014-2022), who projected a more amiable face of the regime.

In the lead-up to the signing of the multilateral 2015 Iran nuclear agreement (known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), for example, which downgraded the Iranian nuclear program for civilian use in return for the lifting of American sanctions, and which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposed as the “worst deal of the century”, former foreign minister Julie Bishop visited Tehran. One of her objectives on that trip was to ensure that Australia benefited from the wealth and reconstruction boom set to occur in Iran once the nuclear agreement came into place. Her Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif – the deal’s main negotiator – returned the visit, coming to Australia in 2016.

Through this relationship, our trade, economic and cultural ties benefited. In the 1990s and 2000s, the trade value of this relationship reached close to $1 billion a year, with some 900 Iranian students allowed to study at Australian universities on Iranian government scholarships. But over time, the volume of trade dwindled as Iran achieved self-sufficiency in wheat and meat industries. At the same time, the number of students dropped due to financial contingencies resulting from increased US sanctions on Iran, poor governance, mismanagement, and corruption under the Islamic regime.

This week’s severance of ties and designation of the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist outfit – something the European Union is yet to do – ends that era.

“There is no doubt that these extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil have crossed a line, and that is why we have declared Iran’s ambassador to Australia persona non grata,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Tuesday.

This decision conveys a strong message of disapproval of the regime for its alleged unsavoury activities. It gives comfort to the regime’s domestic opposition, as well as the United States and Israel, especially in the wake of Netanyahu’s criticism of Albanese for being weak and abandoning the Jewish community in Australia by his government’s recognition of the state of Palestine.

It also raises Australia’s credentials on the back of growing hostility between Iran, Israel and the US, as evidenced in the 12-day war and America’s bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites in June.

Yet in Iran, it is unlikely to cause much anguish. The Islamic regime has become too self-absorbed and protective of itself against internal opposition and external threats to be shaken by Canberra’s diplomatic offensives. Its main instrument of power, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, has little or no assets in Australia that are likely to be affected by Canberra’s classification.

Long before the 12-day war, Israel and Iran have been involved in shadow wars for years, hitting each other’s personnel and facilities whenever possible. It is doubtful that either this kind of confrontation, or the Revolutionary Guard’s role in it, will end any time soon.

As for the Australian government, its actions deprive us and some of our most significant allies of an important diplomatic presence in Iran that could have continued to provide information about what the regime is up to on both domestic and foreign policy fronts. It also carries some risk for Australian citizens who are in Iran because the Islamic regime is known for its hostage diplomacy. Many Western countries, including Australia, have experienced this firsthand, and this is one of the few options for retaliation available to them.

It would be foolish of the regime to go down that road and play into the hands of its adversaries at the further expense of Iran. To avoid any further complications, it is also now incumbent on the Albanese government to make public as soon as possible the hard evidence for its actions.

Amin Saikal is emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies at ANU, adjunct professor of Social Sciences at the University of Western Australia, Vice Chancellor’s strategic fellow at Victoria University, and author of Iran Rising: The survival and future of the Islamic Republic.