Iraq strategy shows Tony Abbott focused on needs of the nation

THE revelation in The Weekend Australian that Tony Abbott may have privately canvassed the possibility of sending more than 3000 Australian troops into northern Iraq, and may have talked privately of the possibility of doing so unilaterally, reveals nothing to the Prime Minister’s discredit. It does not reveal poor judgment or foolish militarism.

Kevin Rudd was embarrassed by WikiLeaks revelations of private conversations with Hillary Clinton in which he described himself as a brutal realist on China and stressed the need for the West to maintain high military capabilities. Such remarks would have been wildly inappropriate publicly, but were perfectly sensible in private.

In Stephen Mills’s book on the Hawke years, he reveals that the Labor legend as prime minister seriously considered offering himself as a mediator between the Americans and Saddam Hussein, and convened a late-night meeting of his senior advisers to talk it over.

For Hawke to have undertaken such a role without an explicit US request would have been foolish, but he was not foolish merely to think out loud about the idea.

Hawke, like Abbott, was an intelligent national leader trying to work out what he could do to help in a central strategic conflict. Abbott has always understood the importance of the ­Islamic State terror threat, and that this has strategic implications. He has been intellectually ahead of the game on this.

Islamic State poses a direct threat to our security, as the ­Islamic State-inspired terrorist ­attacks in Sydney and Melbourne attest.

But it poses deeper strategic threats as well, in part by gravely destabilising the Middle East and in part by Islamic State in effect setting up a pro-terror quasi state in the huge swath of territory, still roughly equivalent in size to Britain, that it controls. Abbott has been concerned to encourage American leadership in response to this situation.

The Obama administration, like all previous governments in Washington, is best encouraged by allies who are willing to actually do things, to share some of the burden. With the Americans, as with most people, what you do is infinitely more important than what you say, though that is important, too.

Abbott offered Barack Obama assistance before the President had even decided that the US would take action against Islamic State in the Middle East. The Prime Minister did this in part to encourage the Americans to take action of their own. However, in doing so, Abbott was furthering Australia’s direct strategic interests beyond the Middle East.

Abbott believes, as does the ­national security ­establishment, that Australia’s ­security is massively enhanced by US leadership, and US credibility, in Asia. US credibility in Asia is affected by its credibility in the Middle East.

Everything Abbott does at the moment is interpreted in a negative light.

But these revelations suggest not a foolish prime minister dreaming up quixotic adventures, but a thoughtful leader seized of his nation’s strategic interests and grappling with all the possibilities.