Australia/Israel Review

The US–Israeli operations launched against Iran on February 28 quickly prompted a predictable chorus of criticism. Some commentators insist the strikes are illegal because force can supposedly only be used in response to an actual attack or immediate risk of an imminent attack, while others argue that the campaign risks destabilising the international order. Both claims rest on a profoundly misleading understanding of the nature of the Iranian regime and the conflict it has waged for decades against both the United States and Israel.

The most basic reality is that Iran has been waging a war of aggression against the United States since the Islamic Republic came into existence in 1979. The seizure of the US Embassy in Teheran and the holding of American diplomats hostage for 444 days was not merely a diplomatic incident, but the opening act of a long, violent and aggressive confrontation between the revolutionary regime and Washington. Since then, the regime has consistently pursued that conflict through a combination of direct attacks and proxy warfare.

American forces have been targeted repeatedly over the past four decades, from the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 to the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996 to Iranian-backed militias attacking US troops, with Iranian-made weapons, in Iraq.

Israel has faced an even more sustained campaign of violence. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza and the West Bank, and a range of militias elsewhere in the region have all received Iranian funding, training and weaponry with the explicit aim of attacking Israel. And, in 2024, Iran twice directly launched huge salvos of missiles and drones against Israel, decisively removing the shield of deniability Iran had been able to employ to fool far too many people as it waged a war the regime openly declared was intended to wipe Israel off the map.

As international human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky argues in this edition, the current operations should thus not be viewed as the beginning of a new war but as another phase in a long-running one. To pretend that the current conflict somehow begins only when Israel or the United States respond directly to Iran’s overt and covert aggression turns the spirit of the laws of armed conflict on their head. 

What’s more, the Islamic Republic has, for decades, been one of the most determined and disruptive opponents of the international order. 

It has not merely attacked Israel and American interests via proxies, it has also systematically undermined the sovereignty of the states in which those proxies operate. Hezbollah’s long domination of Lebanese politics and security have almost completely hollowed out the authority of the Lebanese state. Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have similarly eroded Baghdad’s ability to exercise control over its own territory. In Yemen, the Houthis have prolonged a devastating conflict that has destabilised the entire Arabian Peninsula, and led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. 

The Iranian regime gravely threatens all its regional neighbours, not just Israel – as epitomised by the firing of missiles during the current campaign at Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, Azerbaijan, Turkey and even distant Cyprus. Moreover, despite Teheran’s claims, it is clearly not just targeting US military bases but many civilian sites. 

Globally, Iranian intelligence services and their proxies have been implicated in attacks and plots against Jewish and Israeli targets around the world – as Australia witnessed in 2024 – as well as against Iranian dissidents abroad. At the same time, the regime and its affiliated networks have long been linked to large-scale drug trafficking and cooperation with organised crime groups.

Taken together, this behaviour represents a sustained and fundamental challenge to the rules and norms that underpin international stability. And if, as critics claim, international law says there is no lawful, effective means for victims to respond to this blatant aggression, it is hard to see how the current system of international law is sustainable.

Of course, the Islamic Republic is not merely aggressive abroad; it is also deeply, and uniquely, oppressive at home. The same institution responsible for projecting Iranian power across the region, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is central to maintaining the regime’s brutal grip on its own population, together with its Basij militia subsidiary. 

They have been responsible for suppressing protests, imprisoning and killing dissidents and enforcing the ideological strictures of the state in the face of an Iranian population that numerous credible polls show overwhelmingly hate the regime they live under and desire its fall by almost any means necessary. 

Regime change is not the stated objective of the current US–Israeli campaign – though clearly there is great hope in both Washington and Jerusalem that it might be an indirect outcome. Nonetheless, strikes that have targeted facilities and assets associated with the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij are significant. If the regime’s instruments of repression are degraded, it may create conditions in which the Iranian people feel both the courage and the capacity to once again demand a different future.

If that were to happen, the effects would be profound – with positive consequences well beyond the Middle East, including on counter-terrorism, nuclear non-proliferation and other weapons proliferation, energy stability, and international crime, as well as the prospects of democratisation and improved human rights in many nations currently under pressure, directly or indirectly, from Iran. 

What’s more, it is hard to think of any action that would do more to encourage movement toward real and sustainable Israeli–Palestinian peace than removing the existential Iranian threat to Israel, along with Teheran’s continuous sponsorship of the most extreme, violent and rejectionist elements of the Palestinian national movement over the past four decades. 

Happily, Australia has, on balance, been responding to the unfolding Iran conflict with a degree of realism that is welcome, even if some of the Government’s broader Middle East policies remain contentious and ill-considered. Canberra has supported the operation and acknowledged the destabilising role Iran has played across the region, including its repeated missile and drone attacks on civilian targets.

The decision to deploy an Australian military aircraft to assist in detecting incoming threats to the United Arab Emirates reflects an understanding that Iranian aggression affects the security of numerous Australian partners well beyond Israel. 

The Government also made the right call in its decision to grant asylum to the brave members of the Iranian women’s soccer team who were in Australia for the Women’s Asian Cup. That gesture, modest though it may be, recognises the reality of Iran’s deeply repressive political system.

Ultimately, the current campaign was a predictable result of Iran’s own behaviour and policies. For decades, Teheran has pursued a strategy of confrontation, intimidation and destabilisation while benefiting from the reluctance of its adversaries to respond directly and also hiding behind distorted interpretations of international law. If the present operation reduces the regime’s capacity to wage that campaign, it will have served an important purpose that extends well beyond the immediate battlefield, making the world a better place.

However, imagine if the current conflict does create the opening the Iranian people so desperately need to finally throw off a murderous, authoritarian, revanchist regime that they hate, and replace it with one that actually looks after their needs and serves their real interests. That would be an outcome that would be transformational in almost too many ways to envisage. 

Helen Brustman OAM

AIJAC mourns Helen ‘Helsie’ Brustman OAM

AIJAC is in mourning for our friend and long-standing colleague, Helen ‘Helsie’ Brustman OAM Z”L, who passed away on March 2, 2026. 

Helsie was a proud Australian Jew who gave her all to everything she did, full of endless dedication to the Melbourne and broader Australian Jewish community and to the security and welfare of Israel.

An irrepressible character, almost a force of nature, Heslie knew everybody and everybody knew her. She was much beloved by all of her colleagues at AIJAC, and we benefited enormously from the nearly three decades of tireless commitment she devoted to our cause. 

Her passing leaves a void that will be impossible to fill, and she will be sorely missed by us all.