So here’s the uncomfortable question Australians should ask, especially when our leader Anthony Albanese was so quick to line up behind the strikes: what exactly is the theory of change?

Not the slogan. Not the press release. The real theory. How, precisely, does dropping bombs - or killing a dictator - make Iranian women freer, Iranian prisons emptier, Iranian courts fairer, or Iranian politics more accountable? And how does it secure long-term peace in the Middle East.

If we can’t answer that in plain language, then we are not looking at a pathway to peace and human rights. We’re looking at protracted violence and dysfunction dressed up as virtue.