Issues in Australian Foreign Policy July to December 2005

Three important sets of issues dominated the Australian foreign policy agenda in the second half of 2005: the seemingly never-ending, and often highly charged, question of Australia's place and role in Asia, the management of the US-Australian alliance, and a recrudescence of Islamic terrorist attacks, both close to home and further afield. Firstly, Australia's possible exclusion from the inaugural East Asian Summit (EAS), scheduled to take place in Kuala Lumpur in mid-December 2005, greatly concerned Australian policymakers, the media and informed public opinion, raising the spectre of the country's relegation to the sidelines of regional diplomacy. Secondly, the Bush Administration lobbied the Howard Government to commit troops to the stabilisation of Afghanistan while encouraging Canberra to stay the course in Iraq. Australia's military commitment in Iraq, in particular, remained a divisive issue in Australian politics, with the Opposition denouncing the government for its lack of a clear exitstrategy. Thirdly, the terrorist attacks that claimed fifty-six lives in London on 7 July and killed twenty people in the Indonesian island of Bali on 1 October heightened fears that Australia, too, could one day become the target for the deadly activities of international or home-grown Islamic terrorists.