Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese — let’s call him “Albo” — stood up at the National Press Club this week and had the audacity to question whether the United States has accomplished enough in Iran yet. “It is not clear what more needs to be achieved,” Albo whined, apparently exhausted from the grueling effort of watching America and Israel do all the fighting from 9,000 miles away.
Somebody get this man a participation trophy!
Australia — a country that sits on top of massive energy reserves but somehow can’t keep gas in its own pumps — contributed a whopping 85 military personnel to the entire operation. Eighty-five. Your average Applebee’s has more people working a Friday night shift. They also sent one surveillance plane and some missiles, then spent the rest of the war begging citizens to take the bus and work from home because their gas stations ran dry.
And now Albo wants to lecture Trump about “end points.”
Trump wasn’t having it. “Australia was not great,” he said. “They weren’t there for us. If there is going to be a big war we will remember that as a country.” That’s about as diplomatic as Trump gets, and honestly, he was being generous.
Australia is the only member of the International Energy Agency that doesn’t meet the mandatory 90-day fuel reserve requirement. The *only* one. Even landlocked European countries nobody can find on a map manage to keep fuel in the tank. Australian reserves cratered from 310 days of supply in 2002 down to roughly 37 days today — which barely covers a single resupply shipment from the Persian Gulf. When Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, over 500 Australian gas stations ran completely dry and Albo had to go on national television begging people to stop panic-buying fuel. (Strong leadership energy right there.)
So what was Australia’s big response to the crisis? They loosened fuel standards so Australians could burn dirtier gasoline originally meant for export. Congratulations, mate — you just became a developing nation with nice beaches.
Trump asked Australia to join a naval coalition to protect the Strait of Hormuz — you know, the one shipping lane standing between Australia and a full Mad Max situation. Albo said no. Too provocative. Instead, he cut the fuel tax by 26 cents a liter and called it leadership.
Oh, and it gets better. Three Australian soldiers were literally aboard the American submarine that sank an Iranian warship, but Albo swears they were just there for “training” and “did not participate in any offensive action.” Right. Just tourists on a nuclear sub during a live combat operation. Totally normal. (“Crikey, what’s this red button do?”)
Sixty-one percent of Australians told pollsters they want to stay out of the conflict entirely. Only 13 percent support getting involved. That’s the whole country treating YOUR Navy like a free security subscription — enjoy all the benefits, never pay the bill, then ring up customer service to complain about the coverage.
Then Albo told a closed-door Labor meeting that regime change in Iran “hasn’t happened” and probably never will. So he won’t help fight the war, won’t protect his own shipping lanes, can’t keep fuel in his gas stations, but he’s more than happy to grade America’s homework from the cheap seats.
We spend hundreds of billions of dollars projecting military power across the globe so countries like Australia can sleep soundly at night. The least they could do is not whine about how we’re doing it. But that’s modern allied “leadership” for you — sit on the sideline, contribute nothing, and then Monday-morning quarterback the guys who actually showed up.
With allies like Australia, who needs Iran?
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