Sheridan At His Best

Good old Greg Sheridan has come out of the wood work again to give us his expert assessment on recent defense statements from the government and Labor. It's more or less what one would expect from Greg, glowing praise for Howard and itty bitty nit-picking for Rudd, but let's see some highlights:

'On Iraq he (Rudd) says that Labor will withdraw the 500 Australian combat troops in Iraq but this will occur in deep consultation with Washington and over two troop rotation periods, which means they may not come out for another 12 months, by which time, though he doesn’t say it, anything could happen. He says that in committing to Iraq, Howard has made “the greatest failure of Australia’s national security interests since Vietnam”.
This line of rhetoric plays well in some parts of the media, which is why Rudd uses it, but he makes no effort to sustain the argument. '

Does Rudd really need to make the effort? The war in Iraq has cost around 66,000 to 73'000(this always varies) civilian lives, some 3'500 U.S military lives, has badly consumed resources as to make a more determined focus on Afghanistan impossible, affirmed the image of the U.S Al-Quaeda tries to encourage in every Arab mind and made it nearly unthinkable for us to send forces to help people in countries like Sudan. It's a disaster! Clearly everyone except Sheridan realises this.

'The only specific disadvantage to Australia that Rudd cites is that “we have become a greater terrorist target than would otherwise have been the case because of our participation in the war”. '
If Rudd really believes that, then surely he should withdraw troops suddenly, decisively, with a flourish, a la the Spanish. Not only will he sensibly not do that, but he will keep the rest of the Aussie forces - another 900 troops - in the Persian Gulf as part of the Iraq theatre in support of the US-led coalition. '

It would be incredibly naive to believe that we have not become more of a target from venturing everywhere with our ally. Yes, we were already a target. No, I'm not saying that we should let fear dictate policy and not do what we believe is right, but, let's be honest, the more we tag along the more an attractive target we become.

Sheridan also doesn't seem to take into account the possibility that Rudd doesn't want to do a Latham and alienate himself from the U.S, hence the slow withdrawal. Also, let's be clear, Labor were against the war, they were right and the government wrong, but we're there now and consequently hold responsibilities to which Rudd is profoundly aware. This is not a contradiction at all, one can acknowledge that the war made us a bigger target and accept our current obligations.

'This all speaks well of Rudd’s essential centrism and conservatism in security policy, but it demolishes his argument about the increased terrorist threat to Australia. Can you just imagine Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in their cave at al-Qa’ida central, just inside or just outside Afghanistan, saying to each other: well, we did have those infidel kangaroos high on our terror target list when they were in Iraq but now that they’re only fighting us in Afghanistan, where we are, and supporting our enemies throughout the Persian Gulf, we’ll give them a free pass and not send any more terrorists after them. '

Here Sheridan must be assuming that Al-Quaeda are actually responsible for the latest attacks. We all now know that the most frightening terrorist threats are home grown extremists, or those who've merely grown bitter over our recent folly in Iraq with no Al-Quaeda connection at all. Indeed Sheridan knows this as well, so I'm confused with why he's suddenly so Al-Quaeda focused.

And what does Sheridan have to say about Howard?

'Howard’s speech was bold, strong and one of the best he has given on strategic issues. The defence update was certainly the best written such document - or at least its first two chapters, which provided its overview - in many a year. '

Could we have expected anything less?

On another note, Sheridan gets a cameo in this months edition of conservative magazine Quadrant. David F. Mosler had this to say:

'Historically both Left and Right have produced critics of America but today the Right argues the U.S.A does nothing wrong (Greg Sheridan, for example, the foreign affairs editor of the Australian) while the Left argues the U.S.A does nothing right. The Right view is simply silly but the Left view is a more complex problem.'

Getting bagged from your own side, poor "scooter".