(A report released on Wednesday by the Institute of Economics and Peace said Islamic State and Boko Haram were responsible for half of all global deaths attributed to terrorism in 2015. Boko Haram killed more people than IS).

Abbott has not given up

Turnbull's week-and-a-bit abroad has been shadowed by terror and Abbott, leaving no doubt that Abbott has not given up on getting his old job back.

Turnbull was in Berlin, asleep, when terrorists hit Paris on Friday night local time and slaughtered 129 innocent souls.

As he had to, he stayed up all night being briefed by his ministers and national security advisers over the extent of the atrocity and whether there was any imminent threat to Australia. He addressed the nation. Embassy staff in Paris strived to determine if any Australians were among the dead and injured.

Not even the highest office in the country is immune to internal politics. Alex Ellinghausen

By the time morning broke in Berlin, Turnbull was on a plane to Turkey for the G20, which was now going to be about nothing else but terror. Abbott was in the newspapers claiming vindication for his recent speech about the dangers posed by the flow of refugees from Syria.

Whether he was wrong or right, Abbott's timing was poor and insensitive. As a former prime minister, his comments have gravity. He is not Barry Backbencher. And on it went throughout the week, needling away through the media about what he reckoned should be done, while Turnbull spent much of his time locked in talks with the important players, including the Americans, the Russians and the French.


Abbott implied Turnbull was a sissy when he told Andrew Bolt that IS was "not going to go away just by wishing it to go away".

"It's only going to be defeated if people take very strong steps against it. And that's what the Australian government under my leadership did at home and abroad."

Like Kevin Rudd before him, Tony Abbott has started white-anting his own party. Alex Ellinghausen

Whispering campaigns

There were whispering campaigns about Turnbull not convening enough phone hook-ups of the national security committee of cabinet. This ignored that he was in constant contact with his advisers, relevant minsters and security and police chiefs at home, who reassured him there was no "chatter" suggesting anything was about to happen.

There were pin pricks from Abbott supporters suggesting somehow this would all be better if Peter Dutton, the Immigration Minister, was put back on the National Security Committee, and, one said, that Turnbull was "weak" like US President Barack Obama.

In the piece he wrote for The Australian, in which he suggested sending in the special forces, Abbott passively-aggressively implied that should there be an attack at home, it would be the fault of Turnbull and others who refused to commit ground forces.

"In the wake of Paris and Sinai, it's becoming clearer that an understandable reluctance to accept military casualties abroad could easily lead to more civilian casualties at home," he said.


"The G20 in Turkey is the obvious place and now is the obvious time to start to put an effective international military coalition together."

Had Abbott still been Prime Minister and representing Australia at the G20, he would have cut a lonely figure. Not a single nation there – not the Americans, the Russians, the Canadians, the British and not even the French – thought sending in troops would do any good.

The massive failure that was the Iraq War still looms large on this side of the world. It was a hamfisted invasion on spurious grounds that did nothing but breed extremism in Iraq, which has started to spread. The invasion of Afghanistan, in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, might have been warranted but it showed you cannot conquer an ideology by force.

"[President Obama's] position is, as he has stated publicly, you could send 50,000 Marines to Syria and they will be able to retake Raqqa and Mosul, of course, in Iraq, and they could achieve that success but what happens after that?" Turnbull said in a swipe back at Abbott.

"His view, and this is the view of the leaders of all the countries to whom I have spoken, is the presence of foreign armies in that theatre at the present time would be counterproductive, given the lessons of history, including relatively recent history."

Comeback strategy

There is little choice other than to intensify the current military campaign in Iraq and Syria, while pursuing with vigour the political solution agreed to by the US, Russia and others in Vienna last week. It is the only hope for a long-term resolution to what Abbott rightly calls a "witches' brew". But invade? That's exactly what IS wants.

If Abbott had one strength as leader it was national security and Liberals believe he is using this to try to get his job back.


"It's the comeback strategy," one minister said.

Another said of Abbott and his followers: "They see themselves as the government in exile."

It is no surprise Abbott is bitter and is seeking vengeance, as Kevin Rudd did to Julia Gillard.

But to undermine your own side on national security by eroding the people's trust in the government to protect them in such terrifying times?

That's a whole new level.

Phillip Coorey is The Australian Financial Review's chief political correspondent.