Political Corrections

with Mungo MacCallum

Time to cut and run

Last week John Howard made a rousing and at times passionate speech about the need for Australia to stand firm in Iraq.

The confrontation, he insisted, was one of values and ideals: it was a question of whether freedom could overcome the destructive force of terror. It was a contest of will, of fear and intimidation trying to drive the forces that support democracy out of the country.

It was a contest of conviction, of whether the free world was prepared to protect and encourage democratic values. We could not lose heart, we could not abandon our friends; above all, a stable and democratic Iraq was vital to world stability and security.

It was all very gung-ho, but at the same time high-minded; it was the kind of speech the neo-conservative Americans like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, the men who set up the Iraq operation, might have made.

And indeed they have; but not lately. Because the main point about Howard's rhetoric was that it has become totally irrelevant.

Our Prime Minister may have been too busy trying to sell the budget to have noticed, but the debate on Iraq has changed, and changed irrevocably. There is no longer any hope of implementing the original grand plan of using Iraq in the first step of a total makeover of the Middle East, culminating in a happy and laughing federation of pro-Washington, western style societies.

Even the idea that Iraq itself will settle into a pattern of stable self-government, let alone into a multi-party democracy, is hard to take seriously, and not many of the hardheads in London and Washington still do.

The signs are everywhere: the resurgence of ethnic and religious hatreds across the country, the manifest inability of the occupying forces to control the violence, the resort to using some of Saddam Hussein's own former commanders to put down local insurgencies, the increasing reliance on private security forces which are falling under the control of would-be warlords, loss of moral authority following the exposures of Al Ghraib, the assassinations of credible leaders like Abdul Zahra Ottman Mohammed and the dumping of long time fellow travellers like Ahmed Chalabi and above all the increasing disaffection of the local populace are all pointing towards a total reappraisal of what the war can hope to achieve.

Howard points bravely to the fact that in some places bits of infrastructure are being restored to pre-war levels. Maybe, but the whole exercise was meant to be about a complete political and cultural change, the contest of values that occupied most of Howard's speech.

Well, not any longer. A leaked memo in London this week has shown that even Tony Blair is starting to put pressure on the George Bush - Dick Cheney - Donald Rumsfeld axis of lunacy to restate their objectives in clear and unequivocal terms - in other words, to prepare an exit strategy.

Colin Powell, the nearest thing to a dove in Bush's cabinet, has already started the process by declaring that if the incoming Iraqi interim council asks the Americans to leave, they will do so. The buzz phrase now is "accelerated withdrawal," which is transparent code for "cut and run."

And of course, when Washington pulls out, so will Canberra. Despite all the ranting, the rodomontade and the rhubarb Howard's excellent adventure will end in ignominy - although, naturally, he will insist that he stuck by his allies to the last.

It would be better all round if he accepted what everyone else realises is inevitable sooner rather than later. But stubbornness has always been one of Howard's proudest characteristics.

As always, everyone's out of step but little Johnny.

The Hordern pavilion at the old Sydney Showground has hosted many strange and varied love-ins over the years - it used to be the venue for the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras balls. But there can seldom have been more fulsome affair than the $275 a head extravaganza last week to celebrate John Howard's 30 years in parliament.

30 years is a long time - a working lifetime for many. Only two of Howard's colleagues have hung around the place for as long, and none for longer. Thus it was impossible not to see it, if not as a farewell function, at least as some kind of last hurrah.

Speakers were full of praise for Howard's stamina, resilience, doggedness and political longevity, but it was noteworthy that none of them expressed the hope that they might be giving him another glorious celebration after the next thirty years - or ten years, or three, or even one.

To be sure, many of them also treated it as a new beginning, the launch of the election campaign. But they also made it clear that this was the last go round - with any luck a victory lap, but one way or another, it was time.

The problem with the hitherto unknown MP Trish Draper declaring her toy boy a spouse in order to take him on a free junket was not just one of ethics: it was the hypocrisy that was so outrageous.

Apart from the fact that she poses as a morals campaigner in a government which sanctifies traditional family values, Draper must be aware that if single mothers declare their boy friends, they lose their pensions. She, on the other hand, gets all her part time lover's travelling expenses paid by the taxpayer.

As with parliamentary superannuation, exposure of the rort has brought a back flip and a rethink. But in a decent system it would never have been necessary.