Trump’s latest fire and fury in Iran poses headache for NZ

2026-03-01 - 17:37

Analysis: Back in the more innocent days of 2016, Donald Trump made his unlikely run for the White House with a promise to be an anti-war leader. “Unlike other candidates for the presidency, war and aggression will not be my first instinct,” Trump said in one speech, adding, “A superpower understands that caution and restraint are really truly signs of strength.” A decade on, any lingering hope his pledge could prove true has been wiped away with the latest military strike to be ordered by the United States president – a strike that has tipped the Middle East into yet more chaos, and will have less severe but nonetheless meaningful consequences for New Zealand and the wider world. The weekend’s joint US-Israel strikes on Iran, killing the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior military leaders (along with more than 100 civilians), has sparked a furious response from Tehran in the form of retaliatory drone and missile attacks on Israel and other Middle Eastern nations housing US military bases. With Trump calling on the people of Iran to “take back their country” and promising “a massive and ongoing operation”, the spectre of another prolonged and bloody regional war is hanging over the world. A formal response issued by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters was notably silent on the legality or otherwise of the US-Israel strikes, instead focusing on Iran’s “destabilising activities in the region and elsewhere” and the repression of its own people. “Iran has, for decades, defied the will and expectations of the international community. The legitimacy of a government rests on the support of its people. The Iranian regime has long since lost that support.” While Luxon and Peters “condemned in the strongest terms” Iran’s retaliatory attacks in the Middle East, the pair described the initial strikes as “designed to prevent Iran from continuing to threaten international peace and security”. That did not go far enough for some, with former prime minister Helen Clark labelling the statement “a disgrace” and Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson suggesting the remarks displayed Luxon’s “lack of leadership or moral courage, and willingness to act against New Zealanders’ values”. “The wider region has immediately been drawn into this violence, with hundreds reported dead in only a single day. The idea that it’s okay to bomb other countries because you don’t like their leader is reprehensible.” In a brief press conference before flying out to South America, Peters remained circumspect, describing Iran as “a promoter of terrorism in countless theatres for decades” but declining to weigh in on the Trump administration’s approach to hostile regimes – even as he heads to a continent where Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was captured by US forces less than two months ago. “There will be all sorts of people [who] want to pontificate ... I’m not giving any excuses, but there is an explanation that sooner or later on the question of the rule of law, to make it work, just like in our streets in New Zealand, it has to be enforced.” The Government’s response to the strikes is of a piece with its broader approach to the Trump administration, keeping New Zealand’s head below the parapet to avoid the president’s ire and any potential retaliation. Nor is it alone in doing so, with fellow Five Eyes members Australia and Canada offering more full-throated support of the strikes against Iran. The Iranian regime is hardly a sympathetic victim, with a long history of state-sponsored terrorism coupled with authoritarian rule over its public; the state’s violent crackdown on protesters earlier this year is still fresh in the minds of many. But the US has an inglorious record of attempting to impose regime change in the Middle East, and Trump’s continued indifference to the rules-based order may not always alight on such clear-cut villains (take his repeated threats to seize Greenland). That will continue to test the coalition’s unity, given prior differences of opinion between Luxon and Peters on how to best handle Trump, while it is also yet another distraction from New Zealand’s key foreign policy priorities. “We are a long, long way from this conflict, way out in the Southwest Pacific – let’s not get us too rushed in trying to be involved here,” Peters said somewhat wishfully, having previously expressed his frustration at the time and energy devoted to Israel’s war in Gaza by New Zealand protesters. Luxon and Finance Minister Nicola Willis will also be anxiously watching the economic impact of the war, with reports that Iran is seeking to close off access to the Strait of Hormuz – a vital shipping route for key oil exporters. With the cost of living already a major concern, any surge in prices at the petrol pump – along with second-order effects for exporters – could threaten the country’s fragile economic recovery. That is of little consequence when compared with the loss of life that may result from this war, but it is yet another headache for the Government as Trump’s fire and fury continues to shake the world.