Conrad Black recently wrote that many British and American observers are flummoxed by the turn America has taken under the Biden administration. America isn’t “back” in any sense of the word, they say: it’s gone barking mad. “We have never seen such a shambles of incompetent administration, diplomatic incoherence, and complete military ineptitude as we have seen in these nine months,” according to one British official.
Scott Morrison is finding that out the hard way.
Little more than a month after announcing a historic new alliance with the US and Britain, Australia finds itself caught up in a three-way diplomatic stoush with America and France. Suffice to say, AUKUS is off to a rocky start, no thanks to Joe Biden.
The row began when French president Emmanuel Macron accused Morrison of “lying” about the Australian government’s decision to scrap the controversial deal with France to build Australia’s new submarine fleet, in favour of American nuclear subs.
This is not exactly surprising: Macron is in the middle of a domestic election, fighting for his political life against a stiff challenge from Marine Le Pen. What better than to gin up some righteous French hauteur against the perfidious Anglo-Saxons, with a foot-stamping and breath-holding tantrum?
But it was Joe Biden’s contribution that is truly flummoxing. Biden threw Morrison under the bus with no hesitation. Biden threw petrol on Macron’s smouldering temper by calling the AUKUS process “clumsy” and “not done with a lot of grace”. Then, he effectively agreed with the accusation against Morrison of lying, stating, “I was under the impression that France had been informed long before”.
There are only two possibilities here: either “Sleepy Joe” was having a senior moment or as the Australian’s Greg Sheridan puts it: “Biden is at that stage of cognitive decline where routinely he can’t remember what he can’t remember”.
The other possibility is that Biden outright lied.
Neither possibility should fill Australia, not to say the rest of the Western world, with confidence.
Whichever it is, Scott Morrison is not taking it lying down. Displaying once again the rare fortitude he shows in foreign affairs, as opposed to his domestic spinelessness, Morrison has flatly rejected Macron’s claim — and by extension, Biden’s.
While stating that he did not “seek to personalise the spat”, Morrison was also forthright that he would not cop “sledging” and “slurs against Australia”.
In his defence, Morrison has outlined detailed conversations and warnings with the French that the subs deal was sliding and Australia was looking elsewhere. The French project, Morrison argues, was already beset with delays and cost overruns, as well as questions over the level of Australian content
Morrison says he tried to inform Macron of the decision to scrap the deal two days before the public announcement of AUKUS — but Macron refused to take his call.
Backing Morrison’s version of events is, allegedly, a confidential 15-page American document held by the White House National Security Council. The document, “in effect, a 15-page timeline”, is signed-off by Biden’s closest advisers. It allegedly shows that the Biden administration was fully aware that France had not been told ahead of the announcement of the AUKUS pact — directly contradicting Biden’s public statement to Macron.
Whether Biden outright lied, to curry favour with the French, or simply forgot, is a damning indictment, either way. The most powerful nation in the world is either led by a dotard who allegedly soiled himself during a meeting with the Pope, or it is led by a liar who has no hesitation in throwing even his country’s closest allies under a bus.
The only good news for Australia is that Scott Morrison is once more showing off some rare political mongrel. Having shown that his government wouldn’t hesitate to stand up to the world’s biggest bully, China, he’s also showing that they won’t take any bullshit from two-faced “allies”.
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