Monday, 23 June 2025

Topics: Israel-Iran conflict.

E&OE………

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Let's bring former ambassador to Israel and now shadow Assistant Minister for competition charities and Treasury Senator Dave Sharma in. Dave, good morning.

DAVE SHARMA: Good morning, Stephen. Great to join me.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Am I being uncharitable, saying that the Prime Minister's out of his depth and that his response was pathetic?

DAVE SHARMA: No, I don't think so at all. I mean, I think what was most striking is that on Sunday when spoke to this news, saw this news earlier in the morning, they expected to see someone from the government, someone senior in the government, explained to them what it meant for Australia, how seriously we were taking it, reassured them that, you know, the government and our assets in the region were onto the case. But instead we had nothing until Monday morning. And then it looked like a hostage video. I mean, it didn't look like Albanese or Penny Wong wanted to be there. I just found that. I don't know if they had a hard time saying what was obvious to everyone else and what needed to be said, which is whilst we never welcome military action, this support by the United States, this strike rather by the United States was justified and important and deserves our support. I just don't know why it was so difficult for them to say that.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: It's, I mean, whether or not we were briefed beforehand. I mean, I'm not being as critical as some other commentators are. The fact that we were left out of the loop, I mean, even senior former generals in the United States were saying, well, that would have only been for security reasons. The less people you tell, the less people know about it. Is that a fair assessment?

DAVE SHARMA: Yeah. Look, I don't know obviously what the truth is there, but I don't think it's with a very close hold operation. You bear in mind that many people in the US system didn't know about this. Some of the pilots who were part of a decoy going, you know, west towards Guam, run eastward, Europe probably didn't know about what was going on. So, you know, we're very high operational security on these missions. You know, we don't need to be told. And I think it's only if our interests are likely to be directly impacted that we should expect to be told.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Now there's been more Iranian attacks on Israel and Israel have, I guess, done, for lack of a better way of putting it, a mopping up exercise with further bombings on Fordow. Where do you see this going, particularly now that there's been, well, reportedly missile strikes out of Iran on US bases in Qatar.

DAVE SHARMA: Look, what I see is, strangely enough, is this sort of a de-escalation path from here or a bit of an off brand. Look, the Iranian attack on the US base in Qatar was signaled and foreshadowed in advance. Iran provided advance notice, which meant the attack caused no casualties and air defences were used. And that's quite similar to how they responded to when the United States killed Qassam Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, in the first Trump turn in 2020. Sort of Iran saying, look, we have to show a response to our people, but we really don't want this to go any further. That's the signal. And look, Israel's here. They hit some of the entry tunnels to ford out, but they also hit Evan Prison, which is a notorious site where political detainees and prisoners are held. And I believe the IRGC headquarters as well, which is part of Iranian Revolutionary Guard, called Army Headquarters. And I think both of those are intended to say that our next set of targets is actually the regime, not just the military installations. So I think both of those things together suggest there's the prospect of an off ramp now where Iran doesn't want to go any further. Israel's probably exhausted most of its military targets and Trump has said, you know, I've delivered my message, I don't need to take any further action if this is the extent of your response,

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Rightly or wrongly, Israel has been losing the PR war with regards to what's going on in Gaza at the moment. Do you see this as a bit of a turning point for. Does the world wake up now and see. Well, hang on, the whole Hamas thing is sponsored by Iran, So is Hezbollah, so are the Houthis. I mean, all the terrorist attacks that are going on in the place are sponsored by this regime. Does this take a bit of heat off Israel?

DAVE SHARMA: Look, I think. I think people have more support for what they've done here, or this operation, if you like, is less contentious globally than, you know, their ongoing conflict in Gaza. I think because people know that the Iranian regime is not a savory group of people, that they've done a lot of damage to their neighbours and the world, that they support terrorist groups abroad, that they've only got hostile intent towards Israel. So I think, you know, this is. I think this changes the perception of Israel in international affairs. I don't think it's permanent. But just at least in terms of this operation,

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: The words regime change seem to pop up all the time. And we know that foreign sponsored Regime change is generally a failure. Does this create a pathway for something more organic to happen in Iran?

DAVE SHARMA: Well, look, I agree with you that I think, you know, foreign imposed regime change is a failure. And I think we would be foolish in the west to be calling for that or seeking that or saying that's our desired end state because that's a far different military operation than what's been conducted so far. But I think you've seen that the Iranian regime is not popular, it doesn't enjoy it high degree of popular legitimacy. It's been rocked by very serious protests even just a few years ago with the Women Life Freedom movement. You know, it's presided over deteriorating living standards across multiple generations, now a declining economy and now they're one sort of claim to strength that they run a formidable military and you know, have a good defence policy has been exposed as hollow. So I think that certainly makes the regime more unstable than it's been for some time. What, what that leads to and what follows, that's too murky for me to tell sitting here in Sydney.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: There's a couple of things that obviously whilst the Prime Minister's trying to pretend that we're not major players in this, I guess from the military perspective we're not. But there's now concerns that Iran might close off the Strait of Hormuz, which is obviously going to create issues with oil and gas supplies. And we've now seen another wave of anti-Semitic attacks here in Australia. What does our government need to do now? I mean they wait? Well, they're 20 months behind the boat on the anti Semitism issue, but can they clean up what's going to happen locally?

DAVE SHARMA: Well, I think the three biggest concerns for the government are firstly the Australians in the region, so in Israel and in Iran and the ability to assist them and evacuate them if possible. And I know that's not an easy task. The second, I think is to make sure that any tensions from the region are not allowed to spill over into Australia, as we saw and as you pointed out, too much happening faster. Israel, Hamas conflict. So making sure that, you know, local groups aren't radicalized. But third, and there's been signals of this, Iran has terrorist assets around the world, you know, supporters, like minded people, but potentially sleeper cells that it could use to conduct terrorist attacks against civilians. Now, you know, we had Mike Burgess, head of ASIO, warn in the speech last year that Iran was one of several countries that was active in this sort of foreign interference, intimidation space in Australia. So they're obviously on the radar of our intelligence agencies, but I think we need to be, you know, making sure we're very alert to that possibility, too.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: We live in interesting times. Dave, good to speak to you this morning.

DAVE SHARMA: Thanks so much for having me on, Stephen.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: All the best. Senator Dave Sharma, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, and the former Ambassador to Israel.

[ENDS]