The Experts

Prime Minister hits the right note

By David Speers

It was 5am in Berlin and Malcolm Turnbull had been up throughout the night.  He walked into a room on the 3rd floor of the famous Adlon Hotel to deliver his most serious statement as Prime Minister, in response to the Paris terrorist atrocity.  After checking his notes one last time, Turnbull looked down the barrel of the camera and spoke to the Australian people back home.  

The Prime Minister hit exactly the right note.  There was no waffle, no wandering explanations of political solutions.  He was resolute, concise and reassuring to a population rightly shocked and nervous. Over the coming days he also used the opportunity to push for a breakthrough in the Syrian quagmire.

While scepticism is justified of what G20 and APEC summits really achieve, there’s no doubt the opportunity for a new Prime Minister to “speed date” so many world leaders, in this of all weeks, was extremely worthwhile.  Turnbull didn’t just use the meetings to meet and greet his global counterparts.  He tried to forge some consensus on the way forward.  This is what a middle power should do.

Australia is a significant military contributor to the US-led coalition, but we don’t have the vested interests of trying to maintain influence in the region like the US, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey all do.  We can bring more independence and less historical baggage to the debate about the best way to fix the mess that’s fuelled the rise of Daesh.

Rather than simply parroting the American position, Turnbull has sought to drive a compromise.  He spoke to Vladimir Putin frankly about how far Russia was prepared to move.  He did likewise with Barack Obama.  There’s no doubt all of the key powers are now shifting considerably.

No one should pretend this is entirely due to the Australian Prime Minister.  It has more to do with the bombing of a Russian passenger jet and the attacks in Paris putting enormous political pressure on all leaders to find an urgent solution.  Nonetheless, Malcolm Turnbull has been rightly using Australia’s voice and whatever influence we do have to push the cause.

Turnbull has undoubtedly been influenced by his Foreign Minister in his thinking on Syria.  Julie Bishop was one of the first western politicians to concede Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad may have to stay for a period of transition, despite President Obama insisting Assad “must go”.

Bishop is now confident the US is coming around.  “I think there is now a broader recognition that he (Assad) may need to be part of the transition,” she told me in Manila on the sidelines of the APEC summit.  Similarly Bishop played down suggestions Vladimir Putin is fixed on keeping Assad in power.  “I don’t think that the Russians have ever particularly supported President Assad but they have certainly supported the status quo. They have equities to protect in Syria. They are keen to maintain influence in Syria.”

So if the US and Russia can agree to keep Assad for a period and then transition him out, what does Malcolm Turnbull’s vision for a political settlement in Syria look like?  He’s suggested a power sharing agreement between Alawites, Shia and Sunni Muslims.  Exactly how power is shared or even how such a deal could be brokered is unclear.  And Turnbull is under no illusion how difficult this will be.  The so far unspoken truth is that Syria and Iraq may never be able to return to the borders drawn up a century ago and broken down by the so-called Islamic State.

As for the military campaign, surely its role should only be to provide conditions on the ground for a political settlement to be achieved.  This doesn’t preclude Tony Abbott’s suggestion of using western Special Forces, including Australians strategically.  The former Prime Minister has not suggested the unilateral deployment of Australian ground forces, despite the interpretation of some.

President Obama came under growing pressure this week over the military strategy.  He clumsily suggested ISIL had been “contained” on the battlefield, the day before the Paris attacks.  His 2008 election rival John McCain is among a number of Republicans who want to send in at least 100,000 American troops.  But as Obama says, and Turnbull echoed, a foreign army is not the answer to Syria’s problems.  What happens when they eventually leave?  We only have to look at what happened in Iraq.

Syria is still a long, long way from being resolved and Daesh will be emboldened after its recent string of attacks.  Still, a political consensus among major world powers moved several steps closer this week and the Australian Prime Minister was among those making a positive contribution.

 

Published: Friday, November 20, 2015

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