The Wrap: Trump’s war has already pulled Australia in

The President of Peace has started another war. 

It began with the bombing of a school in southern Iran. According to Iranian authorities, the death toll from that strike now sits at 168. Many of the victims were children.  

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump have normalised the sight of little coffins. 

Emerging evidence now suggests the school was struck more than once – perhaps three times. A ‘double-tap’ strike is when a first strike is followed up by a second in order to target those still sheltering, those running away, and first responders. Double-tap strikes are prohibited by the laws of war.  

Neither the United States nor Israel has taken responsibility for those first strikes, which US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says are being investigated. That’s the same Secretary of Defense who has overseen, and glorified, the use of similar strikes on Venezuelan boats. And who said the United States would fight this war with “no mercy”, and is proud of “punching them when they’re down”. 

Six American service people have already died in this war. The death toll in Iran is now over 1,000. A couple of days ago, the Center for American Progress estimated the war has already cost American taxpayers US$5 billion. Hundreds of thousands of people, including over 100,000 Australians, have been trapped in the Middle East with no warning. 

The Trump administration has not settled on the point of this war. Is it to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities – the same capabilities Trump said he had “obliterated” the first time he struck Iran last year? Is it regime change? It could be – Trump has just said he must have a say in replacing the assassinated supreme leader of Iran. And the Israeli Defence Minister has promised to kill any replacement the Israeli government doesn’t like. Or is it a war ordained by a Christian God to bring about the second coming, as US military command has been telling American service people? 

There is no strategy beyond the use of force. 

The Trump administration did not even have a plan to evacuate US citizens from the region. There is no plan for the end of this war. 

The Australian Government response to all this has been dismal. Refusing to state that this war is clearly an illegal war of choice, multiple ministers have hidden behind platitudes, saying only that it is for the US and Israel to outline their reasons.  

The Government can dance around it all they like, but this raises huge questions for Australia. 

Are we already involved in this war? 

On Saturday morning, Hegseth announced that a fast-attack submarine had sunk an Iranian warship in international waters, off the coast of Sri Lanka. The attack killed at least 80. The rest were left to drown. 

As part of the Aukus nuclear-powered submarine deal, Australian crew are now embedded on US-flagged Virginia-class submarines. One defence report from November 2025 noted that “one in 10 crew members” on US nuclear-powered attack submarines “is Australian”. In Senate Estimates in October, the Chief of the Australian Navy said: 

“At present there are more than 50 Australians serving on US fast-attack submarines based out of Pearl Harbor. We won’t go into precise numbers, but, suffice to say, that number is growing.” 

On Thursday evening, reports broke that there were indeed two Australian crew on the submarine, likely the USS Minnesota. 

In the Senate earlier on Thursday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in response to a question from Senator David Shoebridge: “US submarine operations are a matter for the United States…for operational and security reasons we do not disclose specific information regarding personnel.” 

There are no operational or security reasons that would prevent the Government from saying whether or not there are Australians serving on US ships and submarines. Especially when the Chief of the Navy has already said there would be. 

This left us with two possible conclusions. Either the Australian government didn’t actually know where Australian crew were or what they were doing. Or they did know, and they were keeping critical information about our security from the Parliament and the public. 

On Friday, the Prime Minister confirmed that there were in fact three Australian crew on board the submarine. 

But Albanese insisted that “no Australian personnel have participated in any offensive action against Iran.”   

So they just watched, I guess? They watched, as their American comrades blew up a ship and then left the victims to drown.  

In fact, according to the Prime Minister, being able to watch is an advantage. As he put it, having Australians embedded on American submarines is “one of the big pluses behind the Aukus arrangements”. 

Even when they’re embedded on submarines engaged in an illegal war of aggression led by a President who places no value in any life but his own.  

As my US colleague Jon B. Wolfsthal put it to me: “They are active duty naval officers on a submarine and under the command of their captain”. 

There is no “not participating”. 

This is Aukus. It has dragged us into this war with no warning and no discussion.  

The Aukus deal makes Australian participation in American wars the default setting. It robs this Government, and Governments that follow it, of the ability to make independent decisions about our own security. How can the Government talk about “sovereign capability” when it has no sovereignty to start with? 

We are already involved in this war, whether we like it or not. 

Australians are operating under the command of an administration which has said it is no longer bound by “stupid rules of engagement”. 

Is that really what Australians want?  

On election night last year, Anthony Albanese said: 

“Australians have chosen to face global challenges, the Australian way – looking after each other, while building for the future.” 

That’s not what this Government is doing. For all its talk about the rules-based order, the Albanese Government has capitulated to MAGA values of violence and brutality, “without mercy”.