When US President Donald Trump ordered strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, the world watched for a response. But in Australia, there was silence. It took a day before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese or Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong addressed the media.

When they did, they backed the US, tentatively, while calling for calm. For Albanese, a leader who once opposed the Iraq war, it’s a moment that reveals how far Labor has travelled on foreign policy and how little resistance that shift is meeting inside his own party.

But while Labor falls in line, the Coalition are thrashing their way to a new identity. This week, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley made her first major pitch to the public – signalling where she wants to take her divided party.

Today, columnist for The Monthly and Inside Story, Karen Middleton, on war, politics and the calculations driving both major parties.

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Guest: Columnist for The Monthly and Inside Story, Karen Middleton.

Photo: Lukas Coch / AAP

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