Donald Trump’s escalating military build-up in the Middle East has raised fears that the United States is on the brink of a new war with Iran.
Fri 27 Feb 2026 01.00
The White House/Flickr
Donald Trump’s escalating military build-up in the Middle East has raised fears that the United States is on the brink of a new war with Iran.
At the same time, Australia’s newly appointed Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has taken a page from the US President’s handbook, reigniting debate over the country’s so-called ‘core values’ and immigration policy.
But as the world enters its most unstable and arguably violent phase since the Cold War, the Australia Institute’s Director of International & Security Affairs, Dr Emma Shortis has called for international relations to return to first principles.
“It is about human beings and about human relationships. It’s not about big power games,” she said on the Australia Institute’s After America podcast.
“It’s about making people safer, and we can make the choice to show leadership there.”
According to reports, the Pentagon is sending “the largest force of American warships and aircraft to the Middle East in decades” as President Trump tries to strong-arm Iran into accepting a deal on its nuclear program.
“The scale of the buildup seems to indicate more than just a strike,” said Dr Shortis.
“My feeling is that the buildup of force in the Mediterranean is beginning to look unstoppable,” agreed Allan Behm, the Australia Institute’s Special Adviser in International & Security Affairs.
“I’m now expecting that there will be military action directed at Iran in the next short while.”
Trump has given Iran “10 to 15 days” to make a deal or face “really bad things”.
Mr Behm “thinks the risks are, at this point, massive”.
A US strike on Iran would send shockwaves far beyond its borders and destabilise an already fragile region.
“What it might do for Israel is I think equally problematic,” said Mr Behm.
“It may equally encourage that kind of recklessness that we’ve seen from Prime Minister Netanyahu or it might encourage the very profound split within Israeli politics that’s just teetering on the brink of bringing Netanyahu down.”
It comes as President Trump hosted his first “Board of Peace” meeting.
“The Board of Peace is nothing more than an extension of the golf club at Mar-a-Lago.
“Trump is the president, you pay Trump to become a member of the club. The green fees you pay to Trump.
“The whole thing is built around Trump’s pretension not only to the leadership of the United States … his pretension that he is somebody who’s left George Washington in his wake.
Mr Behm said the US President is ripping up the modern world order “in favour of some delicious little dream of his own”.
“I mean, it would be a joke if the consequences weren’t so serious.”
He said by destroying the international rule of law and its institutions, Trump was taking the world back “into a kind of anarchic chaos”.
Dr Shortis and Mr Behm said Australia’s silence on the global upheaval has been deafening.
“It’s been clear that the path of least resistance is the cardinal rule for the conduct of international relations by the Australian government,” pointed out Mr Behm.
“We can’t expect the Australian government to fight Trumpism abroad if they’re not willing to do it at home,” said Dr Shortis, referring to the Opposition’s renewed rhetoric on immigration and “core values”.
“And I think we’ve seen a pretty significant example of that this week in Australian domestic politics where we’ve had a Liberal Party proposal about immigration leaked that was startlingly Trumpian.
“It talked about banning immigration from a particular region, talked about deportation, it talked about social media vetting.”
Dr Shortis said there’s also been “very little pushback” from the Albanese Government on One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s “appallingly racist and Islamophobic comments”.
Mr Behm noted that in times of global uncertainty “there is a radical increase in fear”.
“Cynical politicians play on that.Tthe moment you get a bit frightened, create an ‘Other’ out there [someone to blame] … so that you can express your fear through fear of the ‘Other’.
“It is deeply racist and that’s the first retreat of fear, otherness and racism — and it shows up everywhere.”
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