PREVIEW： Realpolitik #8 ｜ Conservative Perspectives with Gary Connolly
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Summary
Graham Connolly is a barrister in Sydney who has advised the Australian Government on national security and law issues. He served in the Naval Intelligence at the Royal Australian Navy, South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, so he knows the topics that we want to talk about rather well. He regularly writes about National Security and Governance, and gives always a realistic conservative perspective, I d argue. You should check out his blog at Strategy Council and his Twitter at .
Transcript
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Hello and welcome to a new episode of RealPolitik. I am your host, Firas Modad. I am joined today by
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Graham Connolly. He's a barrister in Sydney who's advised the Australian government on
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national security and law issues. He served in the Naval Intelligence at the Royal Australian Navy,
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South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, so he knows the topics that we want to talk
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about rather well. He regularly writes about national security and governance and he gives
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always a realistic conservative perspective, I'd argue. You should check out his blog at Strategy
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Council and his Twitter at Grey Connolly. Just to clarify, these are his own views that he'll be
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sharing with us tonight, not those of the Australian government. Grey, how are you? Very well. Thank you
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for inviting me on and very much looking forward to the discussion. My pleasure, my pleasure.
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Sure. Maybe we can, well, the issue of the hour is the Middle East and what's going on with Iran.
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We're recording this on the 20th of June. There will be a lag before it comes out. But maybe we can
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start with your perspective on Russia and Israel, because you're in an unusual position where you
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have been quite understanding of the position of both the Russians and the Israelis, things online tend
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to be either or here. The Russia supporters end up being Hamas supporters and the Ukraine supporters
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end up being Israel supporters. So I wanted to understand the worldview and mindset that lets you be
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a little bit more distinctive than the rest, please. Well, okay. I come to the debate slightly
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differently from everyone else. And I think perhaps this is because I was always a history major and
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things like that. If you look at both Russia, Israel, look at Iran, you look at a lot of these
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countries, Turkey as well, you're dealing with basically an historical civilizational power.
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In other words, you're dealing with countries that have long memories, and they have a long,
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continuous, popular memory, and an understanding of how their world exists and how it should be.
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And I think one of the reasons why I am slightly unique, apart from my natural tendency just not
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to join herds, I have a great dislike of mobs and people just following in with tribes and
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tribalism. I find it self-defeating, and I find it almost undignified.
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I think for mature adults to follow herds. But if I could put it in simple terms, both the Russians
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and the Israelis, and I think this is a problem that people who are against Israel don't really
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understand. Israel is, it is the sort of the Jewish national home, but there are also large numbers of
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Christians and Arab Israelis who have fully bought into the Israeli project, and who consider themselves
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every bit as Israeli as anyone else in the nation. And similarly, Russia in its own way is actually
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much more than just some sort of Slavic Orthodox country. I think one of the things that's been missed in the
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last 20 years is how much, for instance, Putin in his case has done to try and reach out particularly to
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Muslim, to Muslims and other minorities in Russia itself. And so you have in these sort of civilizational
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nation states, you also have a sort of multi-ethnic and a multi-faith
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perspective. And I think that means therefore the nation state to, the one thing the nation state has
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to do in both those countries to hold those polities together is provide security and order.
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And it does that by two ways. Obviously there's the kinetic side, there's the large armed forces,
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there's the security state, but there's also that national idea that sort of, and everyone
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belongs to that. The one thing that both those sort of nation states that are civilizations cannot
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accept, and this would, I think would apply equally to the Turks, certainly would apply to China,
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certainly I think would apply to Iran, regardless who runs it, is the idea that you cannot have the
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nation state challenged by an external actor and made to feel threatened. And the simple analogy,
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I use with people is, and I've heard other people use this, so this is not my idea, but I like it.
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It's that if I, if you live next door to a bear and I tell you not to poke the bear, particularly a
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mother bear, it's not because I'm pro bear. It's because I think nothing good is going to happen here.
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And in their own ways, what the West has handled Russia and the way that particularly the Palestinians
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have handled Israel is a way of poking a bear, a much bigger animal that will simply devour them.
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And so insofar as I see the logical, so to go back, I see the history going backwards of how these sort
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of civilizational states form themselves, and I see the present and how they work, and I can see the
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obvious consequences of stupid things, then I am kind of understanding of them for the simple reason
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that as an Australian, if what happened to Israel happened to Australia, I would want to reserve the
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right for Australia to do whatever it needed to do to recover its hostages and to engage in a,
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you know, engaged in a responsible but nonetheless devastating use of armed force to make sure it
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never happened again. So I guess what I'm trying to say to you is I have a much more, I have a much
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more, I guess, conservative realist view of the world. I don't have it like in a kind of mean way or an
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economically driven way. I just have a conservative realist way that comes out of just the human nature
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and the nature of a nation is really a large family. And it becomes even more complex when you
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have that multi-faith, multi-ethnic polity, because the state actually has to do much more to hold it
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all together, because you don't have the benefits of necessarily homogeneity. You have to do more to
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hold it together. And so the state has to energetically do that. So I think that's just one thing that was
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missed in both the Russian and the Israeli cases is these were both sort of civilizational powers
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that when confronted had to, you know, vindicate their rights. And I've never really understood
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how anyone thought the Israelis would endure what they did and that they would not respond in a
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devastating manner. I mean, Hamas had to know what was going to happen to them. Similarly, the idea
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that you would expand NATO and then start dangling Ukrainian membership of NATO and not expect the
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Russians to react was just insane. And I just think it would matter who ran Russia. And I've said this
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millions, I've said this over and over again. I've said this on Twitter, I've said this over again.
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In the Russian political sphere, Putin is looked upon as a, as a, as a legalist, something of an
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obscurantist, someone who any Russians think is not strong enough in defending Russian interests and
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Russian rights. He's far too mild. You know, a friend of mine who said once, yeah, who's, who's from
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a Slavic background, he always says that Putin is probably the best leader that the West is going
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to get from Russia. It's just downhill after him, probably. Yes. And if you thought out any of the
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czars, I would have exactly the same policy. Yes. It was very obvious to me after 7th October that
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the Israeli retaliation was going to be absolutely devastating. I think now though, the stated policy
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of the Israelis is to get the Gazans out of Gaza permanently with the exploration of where,
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which countries could they go to and how to kick them out. And I think with the strikes on Iran now,
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the possibility of breaching the border with Egypt and forcing the Palestinians into Egypt,
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whether they like it or not, is more of a realistic possibility. I think that what people
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have a problem with is that the view that the West would tolerate something like that is,
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is no longer held, that the West would tolerate the mass expulsion of a population is, it's just
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not accepted in the West anymore. And that the cost of it in terms of relations with the Muslim
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worlds are quite severe. And that in the West, the response to various terrorist attacks was never that.
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So I remember after 9-11, friends of mine calling me from the United States and saying,
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we're leaving the US because they're going to be running around massacring Muslims.
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The expectation was of some kind of collective punishment. And that never materialized. And any
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attempt to do something of the sort was instantly condemned. So the objection tends to be that,
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well, given all of the terrorist attacks that have happened in the West, there was never this
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kind of reaction to expel all Muslims from the West en masse. So I think that that's the,
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that's the complicating factor in Israel's case, or that's the additional dimension in Israel's case,
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that the destruction of Hamas is one thing. And God knows it's necessary to sort of eliminate these
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kinds of movements. But it's also a fact that they're a reflection of these societies,
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that they are organic to these societies rather than simply Iranian agents. And that given that
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reality, what if it were to happen in the West? Well, after the Madrid bombings, after 7-7,
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after the Manchester Arena bombings, et cetera, this wasn't done in the West. So I think that's the
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Okay. But if I could put it back to you, it's that, I mean, I'm an Australian. I live on a massive
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island. So I have, I have a certain degree of security that an Israeli living in a very small
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country. I mean, I often make a joke about Europeans when they talk about climate issues. It's like,
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well, no offense, your country would be a farm here. And, you know, I don't mean that in a
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necessarily derogatory way. It's just, you have to appreciate scale.
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Yeah. And that's, that's right. But I mean, I don't mean that to be rude, but I mean,
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the Israelis live on a very tight margin of security. And I'm not for like, I'm not for
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something extreme. I think one of the big problems of the obvious participation of UN agents in the
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acts of Hamas over the last few decades has been that what, how you, how you would hope to solve
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this would be the United Nations would conduct a fair plebiscite on Gaza's future with the local
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inhabitants. There would be parties contesting a real election for a post-Hamas existence. There
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would be sponsors in the normal world. That is how you would, how you would do it. You would have
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almost a form of UN trusteeship, but you can't do that because the Israelis just don't trust the
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United Nations at all. I mean, certainly the Americans, even if, even if Trump wasn't the
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president, I don't think the Americans would either. And so you just have all this bad blood.
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I can, I can see your point. I've never, I've never taken the view that necessarily Iran
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owns everything about Hamas. I'm personally a skeptic of how much Iran knew about October 7th.
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I've often wondered if the Iranians, because if you know something about the way, if I put it this
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way, the Iranians do terrorism. Uh, and I mean that not in a pejorative way, I just mean that in
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the standard of tradecraft. Yes. Um, it's a very, October 7th, isn't a, isn't the norm of how the
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Iranians, I'm not saying the Iranians are good, but I'm just saying there are things that terrorists
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do that necessarily the Iranians don't do. So for instance, after September 11, you know,
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the Iranians condemned September 11, they absolutely condemned it as un-Islamic. Yeah.
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There was just, there was just something very, very, uh, just barbaric about it that offended,
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I guess, the sheer mind in a way that I don't think for say, uh, Salafist takfiris, you have
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that same problem. Um, I mean, I'm, I mean, I, I, I was in, um, just a small, I hate going
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back to my past experiences, but in Iraq, um, you know, Al Qaeda in Iraq was well known for
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instance, to use mentally disabled or, um, or, or people with disabilities as unconscious
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suicide bombers. And they actually would send them into marketplaces and they would detonate
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them remotely. And the person carrying, had no idea the backpack they were carrying,
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I mean, the sort of just brutal way of doing things very much. The Iranians had much more,
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I guess, um, a different kind of trade craft, if I can put it that way. So I've always been
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something of a skeptic of what Iran really knew about October 7th, because it just, I
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just can't help thinking that the Iranians would have said, don't do this. This is just
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dumb. This is stupid. The way we do things is we do through mass irritation. Um, don't
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forget, I've always said this, Will, in 2006, because I was in the Middle East in 2006, when
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they launched the Hezbollah against Israel, yes, the Israelis took some punches, but the Israelis
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smashed Hezbollah. I mean, they absolutely smashed Hezbollah to the point where Hezbollah took
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such a beating, they really didn't recover for a number of years. And, um, certainly
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in my understanding is in Lebanon itself, the beating that Hezbollah took, which affected
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the civilian populations in Lebanon was something also that was held against Lebanon as well.
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So it was held against Hezbollah as well. So I guess I just have always been something
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of skeptic of what Iran did. Now what Iran did after October 7th was dumb in saying, oh,
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well, these are our sort of, uh, axis of resistance in the region. We have to support
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them. Um, instead of taking, I think the more sober minded view that a proper empire would
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take. And that is the dog wags the tail, the tail doesn't wag the dog. And we're going
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to let you take a beating here to search, you learn a lesson and which is what Iran didn't
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do. And, uh, and so the Iranians in a sense have only got themselves to blame in that regard.
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But I've always, I've always, I've found like the idea of what do you do with Gaza, uh, post
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all this is, I mean, you're not going to turn it into Dubai on the Mediterranean. You, you're
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going to have to find some way that's realistic to, to sort this. And I just think the idea
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of expelling or relocating the population is obviously, um, unfeasible. I mean, it's unfeasible.
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It's unfeasible. Also Egypt are not going to take the Palestinians. Um, so they're not
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going to take them. My, my growing concern gray is that the Israelis don't see any limits
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on their military power. Um, and don't see, don't seem to have a sense of restraint in
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this cabinet under this leadership. So if you looked at 67 Israel, uh, they were shocked
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at the territory that they recovered, that they captured, uh, and they thought, well, maybe
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we should give some of it back and in exchange for peace that never happened. It couldn't
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work, et cetera, et cetera. Fair enough. The voices who would think this way no longer exist
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in Israel. The, the, the, the, the, the levy ash calls who could think in this particular
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way and who could see, hold on, are we overextending ourselves? Uh, there must be some sort of shared
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legitimacy no longer exist in Israel. And the refrain that the Israelis have kept on repeating
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was that the Arabs only understand force. We must always use force. And it seems to me
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that in fact, this is in a way flipped and that the Israelis only understand the use of
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force now. So the attempts to break the West bank, the, the attempts to break the camps in
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the West bank and to completely eliminate any kind of capability in the West bank. On the
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one side, it's understandable. On the other side, it guarantees the Hamasification of the
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West bank. Um, the idea that the population would be expelled. Well, the only way to do
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it is to go after the, uh, to, to, to force open that border and see how the Egyptians retaliate
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and militarily they can't do anything. Uh, and that's becoming a risk that's acceptable.
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So there's a big panic among people in the Middle East who I speak to that Egypt is next. And I tend
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to share that view that the Israelis have lost the sense that we need to maintain a level of
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stability and they are more on the side that says we will use as much force as it takes to
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build fortress Israel. Okay. So I, I can understand what you're saying. I think one,
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one of two things I would say in response is, and this is not to dispute anything that you've just
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said is that after what Israel suffered and the fact they've still got hostages that have been
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kept now, um, what were almost in July, um, the, the Israelis, the Israel, I think the Israeli view
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would be as long as you're holding our hostage, we're bringing the hammer down. And until we get
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everyone back, the hammer keeps falling. I think that would be the Israeli view in respect to the
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West bank. If that is correct. And I will defer to your knowledge here. That would be, I think,
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a big mistake because, um, you need to be able to distinguish, uh, you know, sort of mortal threats
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from irritants. And insofar as the West bank has been curious by what it has not done since October
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7th. I mean, I think that that's a mistake. Um, I do think the one thing that as going back to my
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civilizational PowerPoint, um, I think the one thing with the Israelis is that, and, uh, I, I grew up in,
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I grew up in Sydney and I mostly grew up in a Jewish part of Sydney in the Eastern suburbs.
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So this is, I won't give you a long disquisition on the geography of Sydney, but it's a, it's an
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interesting city full of people from everywhere. So I grew up in the Eastern suburbs. It's a very
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nice, um, it's a very affluent part of Sydney, but it's, it's also historically, it's a very Jewish
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area. And, um, I remember a colleague of mine saying about exactly what you're talking about,
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about the difference in Israeli politics. And he just said, every, everyone is Bagan now.
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Another year, everyone's Medican Bagan now. Yeah. Medican Bagan who said, I am a Jew. I do not
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come to you on my knees. I come to you. Um, you know, you will respect us kind of, and I have to
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be honest, I think it's just unreal not to understand among the, uh, not just Israelis,
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but the Jewish diaspora over the world, just how much what happened has affected them. And I think
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would have been completely different if Hamas had attacked, say like Israeli outposts or checkpoints,
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say like Hezbollah do, and they, they, perhaps they have duck soldiers and they hold them
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in the sort of way that people are held there, et cetera. That might be one thing, but they went
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after women, they went after girls, you know, just barbaric. And when you see that, the primal,
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yeah, no, I'm just saying the primal response of people is, sorry, this is gloves come off.
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You've, you've, you've crossed the civilizational red line. Yeah. And I, I just think that is
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something that I just, I think it's unreal to sort of not, not, not understand it. Now
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it's not to excuse that. I mean, like after September 11, there were terrible things done
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in the aftermath of that that were justified by, well, you know, these people flew planes
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into buildings, therefore, yeah, they've got where they're coming. But I'm just saying,
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I think, I don't think there's going to be any kind of sensible restraint on what anyone
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is doing until, until all, until all the hostages are back. And I think from the Israeli's perspective,
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The issue with the hostages, the, the, the issue with the hostages has been that Hamas's
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conditions for releasing them went from, we want hundreds of prisoners in exchange for each hostage
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to, okay, so long as we get a full guarantee to end the war and some guarantees about reconstruction
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and aid, which sort of implicitly guarantee Hamas's survival. So the, the issue with the hostages,
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now, isn't that Hamas is still keeping them, it's that the Israelis reject the possibility of Hamas
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continuing in existence. The problem with that mindset, as far as I can see it, is that Hamas
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is a, unfortunately, a genuine expression of what the Palestinians want now. It wasn't always what
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the Palestinians wanted, but it is now. And that removing them is practically impossible.
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So we've, the, the way that this conflict has played out, I mean, I think it was Hilaire Belok
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that said something about a, the anger emanating from a crisis, not making you fundamentally change
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your strategy and thinking as a precondition for being able to exercise wise policy. I wish I
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remember how he said it because it would have sounded a lot better, but that's as best, that's the best
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that I can do with it. And it seems to me that here, strategically, the Israelis have put themselves
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in a particular bind where they have the military power to do whatever they want, including do things
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like strike Iran. But the consequences of that are going to be a deeper hostility in the Muslim world
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than already existed. And I grew up in Jordan, where being called a Jew was the worst thing that you,
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that you could be called. So this is starting from a high bar, and yet it's getting considerably worse.
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And the empowerment of Turkey, which is going to be considerably more competent than Iran,
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by its very nature and its military tradition. And because as the Arabs like to say, the Sunnah are
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for government and the Shia are for flagellation. The Shia can't rule well, the Sunnis can, and they
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have a more capable and impressive military history. So while accepting what you're saying on the emotions
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associated with it, it just seems to me, from a Western perspective, and I'm not a Westerner, but
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this is the Western mood, morally unacceptable to mass expel the Palestinians, who can't be compared to
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sort of Aborigines or to American tribes, because this is an advanced Islamic civilization, not a
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people living in prehistory. And the second one being a Sunni world that is more confident in its
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endless hostility to Israel, and that has a more effective leader in Turkey.
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