There are a lot of things I like about John Howard.  Naturally, his robust support of Dobleve in Iraq isn’t one of them, but I had thought that the veteran Liberal Australian PM had a bit more political sense than to rally to defend the Iraq war against…Obama.  Obama?  Good grief.  The man hasn’t been in the presidential race officially for more than forty-eight hours and already his every utterance is being given international consideration!  Edwards wants to withdraw 40,000 troops yesterday, but John Howard does not feel moved to speak.  Tom Vilsack demands that Congress put forward binding defunding legislation, and John Howard remains mute.  But Obama mentions withdrawing from Iraq, and suddenly it’s a matter of international concern.  Did I miss something?  Did Obama become Secretary of State while I was asleep Friday night?  What’s going on?

The answer, to which the CBS story only briefly refers, is the possible end of the Howard Era in Australia.  On many fronts, barring the idiocy of participating in the Iraq war, Howard has been a relatively good Prime Minister for Australia.  He has even recently engaged in a bit of patriotic enthusiasm over the Australian flag and a desire to recover the “old Australia” that puts George “Family Values Don’t Stop At The Rio Grande” Bush to shame.  Of course, his recent bouts of demonstrative patriotism are connected to the same thing that seems to be motivating his shot at Obama: his party’s current sorry standing in the polls. 

As The Economist reports this week, the Liberals are trailing Labor under its new leader Kevin Rudd by 12 points.  The new leader has overseen a sudden reversal of Labor’s position, and Howard’s appeal has waned.  It is, however, not entirely clear how trumpeting his support for the Iraq war–a decidedly unpopular cause in Australia in the beginning and definitely still very unpopular–and bashing a Democratic nobody (which is, let’s face it, what Obama is right now) does anything to boost his party’s political fortunes, when this row just reminds Australians that they have soldiers in Iraq because of Howard and Obama is proposing to make it possible for those soldiers to go home.  This dispute can only work to make most Australians think that Obama and the Democrats are making at least a little more sense on Iraq, while confirming the public in their opposition to Howard’s most unpopular policy.  Yet it seems that Howard must be hoping that it will somehow help the Liberals in this year’s election.  It doesn’t really make any sense.   

Update: PM Howard has at least one defender here in the States–Duncan Hunter!  While a few in Congress have said that foreigners shouldn’t meddle in our elections, Hunter has managed to somehow take a losing position on this and thus help to make his already implausible presidential bid that much more far-fetched:

“I think the Aussies have earned a right to comment on the world stage about their partner in this endeavour because they’ve been fighting side-by-side with us in Iraq,” Congressman Hunter said.

Obama hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory, to put it mildly, as he managed to show off all that knowledge and experience he gained as an international relations major:

Obama was quoted as saying: “I would also note that we have close to 140,000 troops in Iraq, and my understanding is Mr Howard has deployed 1,400, so if he is … to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them to Iraq.”

Downer responded on behalf of the government, saying a commitment of 20,000 troops would be impossible for Australia.

“That would be half of our army,” Downer said. “Australia is a much smaller country than the United States and so he might like to weigh that up.”

I will hazard a guess that this is the most ridiculous international dispute, such as it is, that we have seen in the last ten years.