Australian Move Against Iran Raises Intel Doubts

Consortium News
Volume 30, Number 243 — Monday, September 1, 2025


Australian Move Against Iran Raises Intel Doubts


Australia’s diplomatic attack on Iran may have further eroded confidence in the country’s spy agency and the Albanese government, Mick Hall reports

The Iranian embassy to Australia in Canberra. (Nick-D /Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 3.0)

By Mick Hall
Special to Consortium News

The expulsion of Iran’s ambassador to Australia over accusations his country directed anti-Semitic recent attacks in Sydney and Melbourne may yet backfire on intelligence agencies behind the move.

The expulsion of Ahmad Sadeghi and three other officials followed a briefing from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) on Aug. 26, which Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese concluded had presented credible evidence of Iran’s involvement.

According to some analysts however, a significant proportion of the public are not convinced and the diplomatic attack on Iran may have further eroded confidence in the spy agency and their government, which uncritically accepted its conclusions.

“These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil,” Albanese told media on Tuesday. “They were attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community.”

Albanese did not explain what Iran would have to gain from such activities.

Mike Burgess in 2023. (YouTube/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0)

ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess claimed his organisation had unpicked a complex network of criminal proxies used by Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to attack a kosher restaurant in Sydney and the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne. No one was injured in those attacks.

He said Iran was “likely” to have been involved in directing other anti-Semitic attacks, although the four diplomats being expelled were not involved.

“They’re just using cut-outs, including people who are criminals and members of organised crime gangs to do their bidding or direct their bidding,” he said.

Mostly tellingly, Burgess confirmed his organisation’s investigation had been carried out with help from foreign partners. A Jerusalem Post report suggested Mossad was one of the likely intelligence partners involved, while analysts said the U.S. had most likely played a role as well.

“It is quite clear that a large proportion of people, of different backgrounds, no longer accept the pronouncements of these ‘intelligence’ organisations without questioning,” Warwick Powell, an adjunct professor at Queensland University of Technology, told Consortium News.


“A cursory glance across the independent media and social media spaces tells us as much. The centrality of ambiguous words like ‘likely’ and ‘possible’ as part of the rationalisation of the diplomatic expulsion don’t help, raising scepticism amongst people as to motives and judgement. Put plainly, the credibility of these agencies has been severely damaged over the past couple of decades.”

‘Politically Tainted Report’

Israel’s likely involvement in Australia’s move against Iran, while Israeli diplomats remain in the country amid a genocide being committed in Gaza, is a damning indictment of a politically-tainted report used as a diplomatic move against a country the Zionist state is attempting to destroy.

This week Western publics witnessed the live bombing of the Nasser Hospital in the south of the Gaza Strip, a “double-tap” strike that killed 21 people, including emergency responders and five more journalists. It brings the number of journalists killed in Gaza over the last 22 months to 247, according to U.N. statistics.

“Compounding this scepticism is the fact that many across the community are highly critical of the government’s reactions to the situation in Gaza,” Powell says.


“While the government made the announcements to expel Iran’s ambassador on the back of undisclosed and seemingly tendentious ‘intelligence,’ we were all aware that another hospital in Gaza had been bombed by Israel, with journalists and civilians amongst the casualties. A question of standards is therefore naturally raised. Disgust at the apparent hypocrisy is deserved.

“If Australia wanted to remind the world that its foreign policy priorities are often or largely shaped by those of other countries, then it is hard to think of a better way than this.”

The IRGC will now be designated a terrorist organisation by Australia, following designations by the U.S. and Canada. Other Five Eyes partners, including New Zealand, are expected to do the same.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters condemned Iran following Albanese’s announcement.

“New Zealand is gravely concerned to learn of Australia’s announcement on Iran’s role in antisemitic attacks against the Australian Jewish community,” Peters said.


“New Zealand unequivocally condemns Iran’s actions, including through proxies, in Gaza, the Red Sea and around the Middle East and the world. State-sponsored attacks designed to sow discord are completely unacceptable.”

The language used by Burgess and Albanese plays to the widely-disseminated distortion of Iran directing “proxies” in the Middle East, creating trouble for geopolitical gain, including using Hezbollah, an independent, powerful regional ally of Iran.

This Western projection has been a feature of Five Eyes’ annual ‘threat assessment’ reports in recent years, warning that Tehran and Moscow are using criminal proxies to carry out its violent attacks across Europe.

Rendering of the “Five Eyes” intelligence network that includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., the U.S. (@GDJ, Openclipart)


In October 2024, MI5 chief Ken McCallum claimed Russia was on a mission to generate “sustained mayhem on British and European streets” and that the agency had also responded to 20 plots backed by Iran since 2022.

The New Zealand Security and Intelligence Service (NZSIS) earlier this month warned of heightened threats posed by Iran, Russia and particularly China, repeating themes of its Tasman neighbour and other Five Eyes partners.

The report provoked a stern rebuke from China, evidently becoming less patient with the country’s increasing alignment with the U.S. and its hegemonic narratives and machinations in the Asia Pacific region.

The latest move by Australia may also see public patience wearing thin.

In the wake of the expulsion announcement, Albanese told media his government would give whatever powers it needed to carry out its work.


“I think Australians can take confidence from our security agencies, know they have a government that backs our agencies and says ‘whatever power you need, we will give you’.”

Although, instances of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia have increased since Oct. 7, 2023, according to some surveys, there have been a number of high-profile fake anti-Semitic attacks in Australia too.

In March, police found a caravan with explosives, no detonator and an address of a Sydney synagogue and eventually concluded it was part of a fabricated plan by an organised crime network in order to divert police resources.

Albanese’s colleague, New South Wales state Premier Chris Minns, is currently the subject of a Parliamentary inquiry for his role in using such anti-Semitic hoaxes as pretext for draconian anti-protest laws aimed at pro-Palestine rallies that have attracted unprecedented numbers in the past month.

Although the Iran probe may serve to attempt to condition the public to accept more powers being given to the state agencies, it may also be useful in positioning Australia on the Israeli side in a renewed war with Iran.

Albanese at an event in Victoria in February. (Samuel Phelps / Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade / CC BY 4.0)

There has been heightened expectancy that Israel’s act of aggression against Iran in June, which resulted in a 12-day war, will be followed up with more provocations and attacks on the Islamic Republic.

Tim Anderson, director of the Sydney-based Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies, said Australia’s spy agency was almost certainly assisted in its probe by Mossad and America’s National Security Agency (NSA).

“It is very clear to me, as a researcher and author of several books on the mid east wars, that the Israelis played a determining role in Canberra’s expulsion of the Iranian ambassador from Australia,” he told Consortium News.


“This demonstrates the ongoing reality of foreign interference [U.S.-Israeli] in Australian politics.

“These are the same agencies that fed us a steady stream of fake war propaganda including the supposed WMDs in Iraq, claims of Hamas bases under Gaza hospitals and fake stories about Iran being on the verge of producing nuclear weapons.”

Anderson believes the diplomatic move against Iran not only puts Australia on good terms with Israel and the U.S. again, after a spat over its purely symbolic recognition of Palestine on Aug. 12, it may also be aimed at making its public more amenable to any military support given to Israel.

“Canberra’s diplomatic attack on Iran comes as the Israelis prepare for a second round of aggression against Iran and while the Australian public, through huge rallies, has been expressing its outrage at the Albanese government’s collaboration with the Gaza genocide and demanding punishment of the Israelis,” he says.

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation’s building in the Parliamentary Triangle, Canberra. (Nick-D, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

After presenting ASIO with a catalogue of claims about a supposed IRGC role in “anti-Semitic attacks,” he says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has now forced Albanese’s hand, denouncing Iran so as to maintain support of his big brother in Washington. This may also help align Canberra with Israel’s upcoming second round attack on Iran.”


“Netanyahu seems to be further embedding Canberra in his war against Iran as part of his U.S.-backed plot to destroy Palestine and control the entire Middle East.”

Australia Citizens Party spokesperson Robert Barwick compares the intelligence report on Iran to the erroneous “weapons of mass destruction” dossier used to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, which arguably left public trust in intelligence agencies in the U.S. and U.K. at at an all-time low.

“Some people, especially politicians, seem to think intelligence assessments by the ASIO are like weather bureau information – objective, accurate reports from an impartial government agency. Nothing could be further from the truth. Intelligence is highly politicised,” he told Mick Hall in Context.

“Initially, Australia’s top intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments (ONA), assessed that Iraq might have been reviving its WMD program,” Barwick told Consortium News.

“Then, after Sept. 13 2002, the ONA hardened its intelligence to align with the C.I.A. and MI6 fabrications, claiming that Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction — a clearly politicised move to falsify evidence to suit the government.”

For Barwick, the move against Iran should highlight the dangers of a U.S.-aligned intelligence community strongly influencing national government policy.

“We should be demanding evidence, not ‘intelligence’,” he says.

Mick Hall is an independent journalist based in New Zealand. He is a former digital journalist at Radio New Zealand (RNZ) and former Australian Associated Press (AAP) staffer, having also written investigative stories for various newspapers, including the New Zealand Herald.