Phil Goff: Former Foreign Minister on the Government's stance on the conflict in the Middle East

The Prime Minister’s being accused of playing politics over Iran. 

Christopher Luxon says the Government will make a decision very shortly on whether to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity. 

Former Foreign Minister Phil Goff told Ryan Bridge if Luxon wanted to take a stand, he should have done it already, as moving now would look opportunistic. 

He's questioning why the Government's treating Iran differently than countries like Russia, and thinks we need consistency. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the PM yesterday and is post scabs signaling the IRGC,
that's the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Could they're the really
bad ones? Could soon be officially listed as a terrorist
organization here in.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
New Zealand for New Zealand to designate the IIGC as
a terrorist entiteent, will you do that again? That has
been a process, as you know, around terrorism designation that
we have separately from this event. But suffice to say
that I think we'll have our decision on that very shortly.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
The Aussies have already done it. They've also expelled their
Iranian ambassador, Phil GoF, former Foreign Affairs Minister with US
and Minister of Defense. Good morning Phil, Yes, good morning. Right?
Does it really matter if we do that at this
point it.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Looks like it's totally opportunistic to do it now. If
you're going to do it, you should have done it
much earlier. But you've also got to be consistent. So
we decide that Iran, which has an awful regime, we're
not going to have diplomatic relations with it, or we're
going to prescribe their military. What about Russia? Russia invaded Ukraine,

(01:01):
It's killed hundreds of thousands of people. Why do we
treat Rahan different from another oppressive regime or North Korea.
You need to be consistent in your foreign policy and
you need to follow the rule of law. Really, Luxant
six and seven's over that that's obvious from his performances.
He knows that the action by Trump and Israel was illegal,

(01:22):
but he just can't find the words to say that
and say, well, we don't care about the rule of
international law anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
But no one can look at Starma. Yeah, yeah, I know,
you know what we're going to when you're enough. You've
got to be careful, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
We live in a world where we have a predictable
leader in the United States, the United States, the very
country that's set up the rule of law in the
United Nations with other countries, and we're too scared to
say anything that might offend them. Therefore, we've effectively abandoned
our sovereignty. We're not prepared to say what we think,
to speak the truth and to do the right thing.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
We've been here before with the run. What do you see?
What's the endgame here? What's going to happen? Do you reckon?

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Well? Trump has talked about it being regime change, and
he's encouraging people to rise up, but then he's saying
he's not going to put boots on the ground. And
we've seen that story before. So you encourage people to
rise up, they don't have the guns, they get slaughtered,
and the United States stands back and doesn't do anything
because it's not going to put boots on the ground.

(02:29):
You don't advise people to do something that results in
them being slaughtered unless you're prepared to back them up,
and they're not prepared to do that. It's really, you know,
human rights don't matter that much to Trump. When he
changed the leadership in Venezuela, he didn't change the regime.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Phil GoF, former Defense Minister, former foreign minister. For more
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