Israel urges Australia to take tougher stance on Iran after missile and drone attacks

The Israeli government may push Australia to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organisation, with the country’s ambassador in Canberra calling for “extreme measures” in response to Tehran’s missile and drone attacks over the weekend.

Embassy officials in Canberra claimed Iran’s attack on Israel, which failed to cause major damage, was “unprecedented” and risked a “wide-scale regional conflict”.

Cantor said any request to Australia hadn’t been officially made yet, but the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has already appeared to rule out any diplomatic sanctions on Iran.

That is always the first thing that occurs is people say, ‘will you expel diplomats?’ What that does is, though, limit and restrict your capacity to then have influence and to engage with them,” Albanese told Radio National on Monday.

We’ll continue to engage with our international partners as well, but we urge Iran to cease being, playing a rogue state role in the region and disrupting.”

Albanese went on to dismiss “any of Iran’s so-called justifications here”, calling the weekend strikes “an aggressive act of hundreds of drones and missiles which would have, had that been more successful, had a devastating impact on the Israeli population.”