“Disingenuous”. Minister blindsided as Australia stumbled into Iran war

Defense Minister Richard Marles has not been informed so far: after A US submarine with three Australian Navy personnel on board sank an Iranian frigate. It should have been him, Rex Patrick reports.

On March 4, USS Charlotte sank the Iranian Frigate INIS Dena, resulting in the deaths of at least 87 people. After the sinking, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that there were three Australian submarines on board. MWM Access was requested under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws for all briefings provided by the Ministry of Defense to Defense Minister Richard Marles.

No information was given until after the event.

We may never know whether the government would have left the three Australian submarines on board while they were deployed to support the US-Iran war. Maybe it wouldn’t happen. But they couldn’t make a choice because they were never told. And that should be a major fail in anyone’s book.

US war on Iran exposes Australia’s weak defenses, AUKUS further

follow orders

In Fiscal Year 2023/24, Australia began deploying sailors on US Navy submarines as part of AUKUS. This deployment follows the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the United States and Australia in September 2023 on the exchange of defense personnel.

The MOU is not publicly available. However, the recently leaked December 2024 Chief of Naval Staff Directive reveals that US Navy commanders have been given additional authority to issue lawful and reasonable instructions to Australian submariners on US submarines. He says:

“… RAN members deployed on USN Submarines absolute To comply with all lawful and reasonable instructions given by the appropriate senior-ranking USN member in connection with the performance of the functions for which the chief is responsible.” [bold in original].

The common view is that the war against Iran is not in accordance with international law. The Albanian Government refrained from dealing directly with this legal issue, but expressed its support for the United States to “take action to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.”

US or Australian submarines are not responsible for declaring war and cannot make legal determinations about the legality of war. This applies to others for whom the president himself bears responsibility for any violations of the law.

Submarines must comply with their national laws and do as they are ordered, even if they do not comply with an order that would constitute a war crime.

A submarine commander refuses an order to sink a hospital ship, but an order to sink an enemy-flagged warship in its own or international waters is considered legal. The sinking of the IRIS Dena was legal.

recovery failure

USS Charlotte did not pick up any survivors. Whether this is a crime or not is a gray area of ​​international law.

Submarines are extremely vulnerable while on the surface and are ill-equipped to handle large numbers of sailors, many of whom are injured, due to limited space and limited medical facilities. It may be better for other ships in the area to rescue survivors, as Sri Lankan Navy ships did.

Australian submarines on board would be operating in accordance with the Commander of the Navy’s December 2024 directive.

Following the sinking of IRIS Dena, the Prime Minister told the public that there were Australians on the USS Charlotte, but said:No Australian personnel participated in the offensive action against Iran”.

This statement was disingenuous and an attempt to evade the potential magnitude of what was actually occurring.

Australian submariners did not have to personally press the torpedo ‘fire’ button to play a part in the sinking of a warship.

Conducting war on a submarine is a team effort.

Whether you are a machinist’s mate who keeps multiple systems running, the sailor who gets the submarine safely to the battlefield, a reactor operator who makes sure the onboard systems are powering the propellers and ship systems, a cook who feeds the crew, a communicator who receives orders to attack Iranian ships, or a sonar operator who locates a target, you are part of a team that accomplishes the mission assigned to you, successfully or unsuccessfully.

The Commander of the USS Charlotte knows this and will never claim he did it alone. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps might also reasonably oppose Albanese’s proposal.

Defense fails

Australian military officers do not normally know the disposition of US submarines unless they are in waters where Australia is responsible for submarine water space management (keeping friendly submarines apart is akin to keeping friendly aircraft apart).

However, Australian staff had an obligation to investigate the possibility that, in any lawyer’s opinion, it violated the international rules-based order and could be drawn into conflict, to which the Australian Government subsequently did not undertake.

What they don’t do is perfunctory at best.

What would be the situation now if the Iranians viewed the Australian participation in the offensive as an act of war, as it might have been?

What would have happened if the attack had not gone that way and the Iranian ship had counterattacked and sunk the US submarine and the Australian submariners had also been lost?

These are not questions that can be solved by chance.

In 1989, a pipe bomb blew up the car of the wife of USS Vincennes Commander Capt. Will Rogers, who had accidentally shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in the Persian Gulf the year before. So, did our DoD unwittingly endanger our submariners’ families (and any collateral damage that a retaliatory strike might involve)?

The truth is that the sinking of a ship by a submarine, which is rare today, would be a secret that would be difficult for those involved to keep from fellow submariners who might inadvertently leak their names.

Let me be clear, this writer is not saying that our submarines should go ashore or stay on board; rather that Australia’s involvement in a conflict must be a conscious decision of the Government and for this to happen,

The government of the day should be informed.

The Minister needs to seek answers as to why the Government is left in the dark. Someone must be held accountable and deterrence must be created to prevent it from happening again.

No one wants Australia to find itself blindly embroiled in war or unconsciously attracting terrorism to its shores.

Crossing the Strait. Is Iran acting rationally in a Trumpian world?