{"id":53563,"date":"2023-03-19T04:00:18","date_gmt":"2023-03-18T19:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/mar\/19\/after-john-howard-took-australia-to-war-in-iraq-he-was-scarcely-held-to-account-instead-he-was-re-elected"},"modified":"2023-03-19T04:00:18","modified_gmt":"2023-03-18T19:00:18","slug":"after-john-howard-took-australia-to-war-in-iraq-he-was-scarcely-held-to-account-instead-he-was-re-elected-paul-daley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=53563","title":{"rendered":"After John Howard took Australia to war in Iraq, he was scarcely held to account. Instead, he was re-elected | Paul Daley"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, <strong>Paul Daley<\/strong> maps out the events leading up to Australia\u2019s involvement and the consequent fallout<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/live\/2023\/mar\/19\/australia-news-live-nsw-victoria-heatwave-aukus-richard-marles-election-dominic-perrottet\">Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Get our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/2022\/oct\/29\/email-newsletters-guardian-australia-best-daily-news-emails-newsletter-free-sign-up-inbox-subscribe-headlines?CMP=cvau_sfl\">morning and afternoon news emails<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/ng-interactive\/2018\/may\/15\/the-guardian-app?CMP=cvau_sfl\">free app<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/series\/full-story?CMP=cvau_sfl\">daily news podcast<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Two decades after the US-led \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein, Australia seems to have drawn few lessons from the folly of its participation.<\/p>\n<p>The preservation of the US-Australia alliance, the primary reason for the conservative Howard government\u2019s participation, still largely impels Australia\u2019s foreign and defence policies. If evidence of this was needed exactly 20 years after the invasion, witness this week\u2019s $368bn commitment to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/mar\/13\/aukus-australian-submarine-nuclear-loophole-proliferation-fears\">Aukus submarine deal<\/a> which consequently provokes China into greater potential adversarialism against Australia alongside its joined-at-the-hip ally, the US.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/mar\/19\/after-john-howard-took-australia-to-war-in-iraq-he-was-scarcely-held-to-account-instead-he-was-re-elected\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Paul Daley maps out the events leading up to Australia\u2019s involvement and the consequent falloutFollow our Australia news live blog for the latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free ap&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1509,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,43,645,1585,324,405,2282,212,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-australia-news","category-australian-foreign-policy","category-australian-military","category-australian-politics","category-iraq","category-john-howard","category-middle-east-and-north-africa","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1509"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53564,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53563\/revisions\/53564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}