Immediately after the United States' drone assassination of Iran's visiting senior general Qassem Soleimani, the Iraqi Parliament voted to expel all foreign forces. This includes some 5000 Americans along with more than 300 Australians.

If President Trump gave his allies any forewarning of this act of war against both Iraq and Iran, neither Britain, France, Canada, nor Australia have admitted it. Even his own general in Iraq didn't know, for he had just written to the host government anticipating withdrawal of US troops. The poor man must now be sending a letter about the dispatch of thousands more.

HMAS Toowoomba during her 2018 deployment. Credit:Royal Australian Navy

War is clearly the last thing the Morrison government needs, beset by a national bushfire disaster in which it has been forced to mobilise the Australian Defence Force and its reserves. The government's budget surplus is already blown.

We have a window of opportunity to do as Canada has done, and suspend military operations in Iraq. The government should keep Australia out of a proxy war between the US and Iran in Iraq, and refuse to commit to an illegal war of aggression against Iran.