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John Armstrong.

While every political party laid claim to the moral high ground in the argument surrounding the deployment of a team of army training personnel to Iraq, Terence O'Brien, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs veteran of more than 40 years' standing, cut straight to the crux of the matter.

If last Monday's ''misguided'' decision by Cabinet to dispatch a contingent to Iraq was the price of New Zealand's membership of the exclusive Five Eyes intelligence-gathering ''club'' - as the Prime Minister had admitted a month ago - what did that say about the transparency and credibility of the country's supposedly ''independent'' foreign policy?

Answer: When it comes to deciding whether to sign up or not to sign up to American-instigated military adventures, it is a fact of life that the decision has significance way beyond New Zealand's bilateral relationship with the US.

The Cabinet decision has made something of a nonsense of a key selling point in New Zealand's successful campaign for a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

That selling point was that this country does not belong to any formal alliance, grouping or association with first claim on New Zealand' s allegiance.

New Zealand's campaign was very much based on this country's role as an honest broker able to advocate for other small states suffering from big power bullying or intransigence - not siding with big brother.

For most of his time as Prime Minister, John Key has enjoyed the best of all worlds, hobnobbing with Barak Obama and David Cameron over lunch while still making continuous references to running an independent foreign policy all the way to dinner time.

Well, it has taken the rise and rise of IS to remind everyone that there is no free lunch at the White House or in Downing Street.

With last Tuesday's official announcement of the deployment inevitably resurrecting talk of prices and clubs, Mr Key sought the day before to play down the Washington and London connections by watering down the exclusivity of the ''club'' by saying that when he referred to the club, he had always meant all of the 62 countries in the American-led international coalition contributing to the combating of IS.

See the article here:
Iraq decision: import beyond NZ-US ties