Analysis: The best way to think of our position on the US military strikes is as the closest you can get to not having a position while still saying words.
Corin Dann was sounding increasingly desperate. The RNZ Morning Report presenter was trying to get prime minister Chris Luxon to commit to a position on the US and Israel’s military strikes on Iran and the task was proving almost impossible “Could you clear this up: do we explicitly support the US and Israel taking this action?” he began. “We acknowledge the actions they’ve taken,” Luxon replied, before talking at length about the repressive actions of Iran’s government. “Sure,” said Dann. “Do we support this action?” Luxon couldn’t be derailed. “This is a regime that’s evil. It has claimed countless lives both in Iran and internationally,” he said.
The task was fruitless. Dann started sputtering. “Why can’t you answer this question,” he pleaded. “Are you reacting to Helen Clark’s comments?” asked the prime minister, accusatorily. But then, a breakthrough. “My position isn’t that different to Australia’s position,” said Luxon, before repeating with less equivocation. “Our position is the same as the Australian position.”
That would be clarifying if New Zealand’s position was the same as Australia’s position. However, at least in writing, it’s not. Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese has affirmed that his government supports the US and Israel’s strikes, which others, including UN secretary-general António Guterres, have condemned as risking international peace and security. “We support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security,” Albanese said.
New Zealand’s official position is more in line with Germany, France and Britain’s, all of which have offered condemnation of Iran’s government without directly endorsing military action to bring it to heel. Speaking at the Whenuapai air base yesterday, foreign minister Winston Peters said the US and Israel’s actions were a direct response to a decades-long campaign of terrorism by the Iranian state, while still hinting at dissatisfaction over the strikes targeting its leaders and nuclear facilities. “That’s not an excuse for what you’ve seen. But it is an explanation,” he said.
At his post-cabinet press conference on Monday, Luxon again tried to thread the needle of condemning Iran’s regime without offering an opinion on whether a campaign of bombing and assassination was a legal or morally correct response to its actions. “Again we’re not best-placed to make that assessment. We weren’t proxy or party to these attacks,” he said. “It’s up to [the US and Israel] to assert whether these are legal actions or not.” Pressed for more commitment, he started pointing out the country’s actual physical distance from the conflict. “We are not central to this region. We are a long long long way away from it.”
Perhaps the best way to understand New Zealand’s response to the attacks is as the closest thing possible to having no response while still technically saying words and making sentences. Though it has a history of taking outspoken positions on issues including nuclear weapons and the Iraq war, our independent foreign policy has been shifting into an invisible one.
New Zealand’s firmest recent commitment has been to being non-committal. When 157 of the 193 member states of the United Nations decided to recognise the state of Palestine in September last year, Peters bucked the trend by not taking a position, saying to do so would be a “symbolic” gesture and he’d like to wait until war is no longer actively being waged in Gaza.
When Reserve Bank governor Anna Breman signed a letter of support for her US counterpart Jerome Powell in January, following what he saw as the US administration’s efforts to interfere in his decisionmaking, she was criticised. “We remind the governor to stay in her New Zealand lane and stick to domestic monetary policy. That would have been the advice of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade if the governor had sought its advice, which she did not,” said Peters.
This is known as the “Homer Simpson disappearing into a hedge” approach to foreign policy. The world is getting unpredictable. Strong powers are taking unsanctioned military action against weaker ones. International law is becoming more of an international option. As a small country at the bottom of the world, New Zealand is reliant on the continued existence of a rules-based order. It’s economically dependent on competing superpowers. A good chunk of what passes for its military is currently situated at the bottom of the sea off Samoa. In that position, it’s taken to tugging nervously at its shirt collar and quietly saying “simmer down guys”.
The upside of that approach could be that you don’t give any of the world’s increasingly trigger-happy superpowers a specific reason to get mad at you. The downside is that the public at home – or your braver allies abroad – could see you as equivocating and spineless in an unfurling global crisis which has so far claimed the lives of more than 200 people. In saying little, you might offend no-one, or alienate everyone. Not taking a risk can be a risk in itself. Luxon closed his post-cabinet press conference by once again reaffirming that New Zealand didn’t have enough information to take a position on the US’ and Israel’s attacks on Iran. “With respect to the specifics of the US actions – the independent actions of the US and Israel – as I’ve said before, they’re party to intelligence that we haven’t seen,” he said, before heading for the door.
