MELBOURNE, Australia — The United States and Australia’s political tug of war against Iran over the fates of seven members of the Iranian women’s soccer squad appears to have ended with the depleted team returning home minus the two players who defected last week.Critics now say politics trumped concern for the women’s best interests as the drama played out. The evidence is that of seven Iranian women who initially accepted asylum in Australia, five changed their minds within days and returned to the team for reasons undisclosed.Critics argue the outcome might have been different had the women been provided with independent legal advice earlier and the process not been so rushed.“We ended up with an outcome that is certainly far from ideal,” said Graham Thom, advocacy coordinator for the Refugee Council of Australia, a non-profit umbrella organization representing asylum seekers.“Hopefully the two who are remaining get the protection they need, but we just hope that those who have returned are also safe,” he added.Iran has claimed victory in the extraordinary public relations battle that played out since Immigration Minister Tony Burke released to the media on March 10 a photo of him posing with five women who had accepted protection visas.He said the women, who all appeared without head coverings, were happy for their names and images to be released to the media.Refugee advocates were alarmed, asking if women raised under an oppressive regime could be expected to question the Australian government’s media strategy.Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a political scientist at Sydney’s Macquarie University who spent more than two years in Iranian prisons on spying charges from 2018 to 2020, said “winning the propaganda war” had overshadowed the women’s welfare.“Had these women quietly sought asylum without that publicity around them, it’s possible that the Islamic Republic officials might have, as they have in the cases of other Iranian sportspeople in the past who’ve defected … simply al …
