Australia just dropped a diplomatic bomb on Tehran, one whose shockwaves may reverberate around the world. For the first time since World War II, the government in Canberra has expelled all diplomats from a foreign country and terminated all diplomatic relations. Their intelligence and law enforcement services have determined that Iran directed at least two significant terror attacks in Australia that targeted Jews, and may have been responsible for several others.
"Iran and its proxies," declared Australia's intelligence chief Mike Burgess declared a short while ago, "literally and figuratively lit the matches and fanned the flames."
A spate of violent attacks on Jewish businesses and institutions, which began late last year, has unnerved many people in Australia, which has the highest concentration of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel. The extraordinary decision to publicly hold Iran responsible for some of the attacks, and to cut diplomatic relations, was not reached quickly or taken lightly, Australian officials said on Tuesday.
Australian security agencies have concluded that Iran was behind the arson attacks on a decades-old kosher restaurant, Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, in Sydney in October and the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne two months later. No one was injured in the attacks, which officials said were meant to tear at Australia’s social fabric. ...
Agents of the Revolutionary Guards, a powerful branch of Iran’s military, used “a complex web of proxies to hide its involvement” in the attacks, Mr. Burgess said at the news conference.
It was the latest allegation that the group, which the United States considers a terrorist organization, had carried out operations overseas. This year, British officials warned that the Revolutionary Guards were operating in Britain, engaging in digital espionage, cyberattacks and political interference. They are also believed to have waged disinformation operations in an attempt to sway last year’s U.S. presidential election.
How seriously do the Australians take this? They have decided to join the US in listing the IRGC as an international terrorist organization, a major step and a win for the Trump administration, which took some diplomatic heat for doing the same thing in Trump's first term. They also took care to get their own diplomats out of Tehran before making the announcement:
Shortly before the announcement, the Australian government told Iran's Ambassador to Australia Ahmad Sadeghi that he will be expelled. It also withdrew Australian diplomats posted in Iran to a third country, Albanese said.
An alert to Australians in Iran noted the embassy's closure and urged them to "strongly consider leaving as soon as possible, if it is safe to do so." ...
Albanese said that Australia will legislate to list Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
Australia's law makes providing support to a listed terrorist organization a crime. The government has previously rejected calls to list the Revolutionary Guard under existing terrorism laws because it is a government entity.
The Wall Street Journal notes that anti-Semitic attacks had escalated after the October 7 Hamas atrocities in countries other than Australia. That leads us to the obvious question:
Like many countries, Australia has experienced a surge in antisemitic incidents since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Israel’s military response in Gaza. From October 2023 to September 2024, antisemitic incidents rose by 316%, with more than 2,000 incidents reported, according to a report from Australia’s special envoy to combat antisemitism.
The obvious question is whether the IRGC is driving similar terror/intimidation campaigns in the US. To what extent, for instance, is Iran behind the "globalize the intifada" rioters in the US? We already have listed the IRGC as a terror organization, so any coordination between the groups behind Iran and these radical and violent demonstrations should prompt criminal charges for those involved. More to the point, it should also result in actions that would serve to deter further proxy warfare against the US, Australia, and other Western nations by the mullahs' regime in Tehran.
Will we get more information on such connections from our own intelligence and law enforcement services? And will we see a sudden desire to travel abroad by those agitators who might become targets for prosecution? Stay tuned.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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