The Abbott government has committed Australian military forces to a dangerous and potentially open-ended war against Islamic State militants in Iraq with RAAF airstrikes authorised immediately and special forces set to enter in an advisory capacity soon after.
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The historic decision followed the signing of a legal contract between Baghdad and Canberra and comes more than a fortnight after the pre-deployment of 600 personnel and eight RAAF jet aircraft – six of them F/A-18 Super Hornets.
Flanked by Defence Minister David Johnston and Chief of Defence Force Mark Binskin, Prime Minister Tony Abbott acknowledged the mission would be dangerous and hinted that it could last years.
"I have to warn that this deployment to Iraq could be quite lengthy - certainly months rather than weeks," Mr Abbott said.
"I want to reassure the Australian people that it will be as long as it needs to be, but as short as it possibly can be [but] I also need to warn the Australian people that this is a dangerous mission. It is a dangerous mission, but I am confident that the CDF has put in place all possible measures to minimise risk."
Asked whether Australia might expand its mission into neighbouring Syria, Mr Abbott refused to "speculate on what might be done in months or years to come".
Air Chief Marshal Binskin described the Australian force as "a potent air traffic group" and a commando unit along with all of its support and equipment which, he said, had already been moved 12,000 kilometres in readiness for the mission.
"The air traffic group's been flying supporting missions and some training missions over Iraq for the last couple of days and we're ready to get on with the job," he said.
Mr Abbott said IS, formerly known as ISIL, was an "apocalyptic death cult" that had declared war on the world and it was therefore a matter of Australia's national interest that it be degraded and destroyed if possible.
"It's a fight which has been joined, one way or another, by upwards of 60 countries … it's Iraq's fight at one level, but at a deeper level it's the world's fight because ISIL has declared war on the world; ISIL is launching an assault on civilisation, not just upon the people of Iraq right now."
But he stopped short of conceding that Australia was now at war.
"I know that you'd love to have that headline," he told reporters, "but it's not strictly accurate."
He said the combat operations were directed against an "insurgency" and therefore did not technically constitute a war.
Peter Jennings, a former senior Defence official who now heads the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said RAAF planes would start missions quickly and would continue the work done by the US and other allies, targeting Islamic State checkpoints, vehicles and heavy weapons.
He said this "bottling up strategy" had been effective but soon the fight needed to shift towards Iraqis on the ground retaking villages and towns, with the help of Australian and American advisers.
This would take at least months, he said.
"We are in for a long haul and what the US is going to find is that, as they realise that demand … the pressure will come on Obama to allocate more American trainers."
Defence and strategic experts said the definition of mission success would necessarily be modest.
Bob Bowker, a former ambassador to Egypt now at the Australian National University, said the most realistic goal was simply to maintain the integrity of Iraq.
"We're facing an open-ended conflict, though still with some possibility of that conflict being contained and ultimately reduced to a point where some semblance of sovereignty for the Iraqi government can be maintained," he said.
The announcement came as the gathering war on IS militants in control of vast territories in Syria and Iraq was boosted by the inclusion of Turkey in the US-led coalition of countries attempting to disrupt and degrade the terrorist organisation.
A member of NATO, Turkey had been seen as a crucial part of the puzzle because of its proximity, and the fact that the IS organisation had been transferring funds and people across the border, providing it with vital capacity to wage war.
The Turkish parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of involvement by 298 votes to 98.
Mr Abbott and the Defence leadership declined to go into mission specifics on operational security grounds, but stressed that Australia, while not providing ground troops, believed Iraqi security could not be achieved by third countries.
"I want to stress that only Iraq can defeat ISIL, but Iraq shouldn't be alone and as far as Australia and our allies are concerned, Iraq won't be alone," he said.
