Australian PM s lame silence on Iran bombing points to wariness about optics of Trump ties

SYDNEY – US President Donald Trump’s surprise decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities on June 22 prompted an unusual silence this week from the leader of one of America’s closest allies, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

As the local media clamoured for a response to the bombing and critics warned that silence from Canberra could damage ties with Washington, Mr Albanese took 24 hours to finally issue a formal statement in which he endorsed the strike and called for “dialogue and diplomacy”.

His “lame silence” – as an editorial in The Sydney Morning Herald on June 24 described it – was viewed as a lukewarm endorsement of Mr Trump’s strike, particularly from a country that proudly claims to have fought alongside the US in every major conflict since World War I.

Yet, just a day after Mr Albanese’s statement, Mr Trump’s announcement of a ceasefire on June 24 prompted a much quicker reaction. Within hours, Mr Albanese released a statement welcoming the ceasefire and calling for regional peace.

“We have consistently called for dialogue, diplomacy and de-escalation,” he said.

The Prime Minister insisted that his delayed response to the US strikes was not “slow” or “flat-footed”, saying that Australia was not a central player in the conflict.

“What my government does is act in an orderly, coherent way,” he told Sky News on June 24. “And we were very clear for some period of time that Iran could not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.”

But Mr Albanese’s delayed comments appeared to reflect a serious dilemma he faced in response to the US intervention.

On the one hand, Mr Albanese was keen to avoid damaging the alliance with the US, which could cause a domestic political backlash and could undermine his effort to acquire American nuclear-powered submarines as part