As one military figure put it recently, "blind Freddy" could see that the Abbott government was ready and willing to contribute to military action against the Islamic State.
Tony Abbott has been as loud as any world leader in pressing the case for an armed response. At the same time he has hastened slowly, insisting the government would carefully and methodically ensure any deployment was proportionate to the threat, was in the national interest and was part of a coherent international strategy.
Of course it is right and proper that a government ticks those boxes, but there has never been any serious doubt that Australia would get involved. And while Mr Abbott was quick to stress on Wednesday that no final decision had been made on Australian air strikes, the distinction is now barely meaningful.
RAAF support planes – a KC-30A aerial refuelling tanker and a Wedgetail surveillance plane that paints a sophisticated picture of the battle space and talks to all the allies in the area – have begun helping US fighters carry out bombing raids.
As Andrew Davies from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute points out, refuelling fighters is "only one step removed" from carrying out the air strikes oneself.
The risk to the crews of those aircraft is not substantially different from what it will be for the pilots and air combat officers who fly in the two-seater Super Hornet fighters that will likely start air strikes as soon as Sunday.
"The threat environment in that theatre is not very high in terms of aircraft," Dr Davies says. "The Islamic State have no sophisticated surface to air weapons … So I don't think risk is a huge difference."
It is difficult to see at this point what additional information the National Security Committee of Cabinet needs to give the green light for Australian air strikes and for special forces advisers to start work on the ground.
Likely the hold-up for fuller involvement is two-fold: One, the Iraqi government is taking its time in agreeing to a "status of forces" legal framework with Australia. The Abbott government is being particularly exacting about the way the agreement is put together to ensure Australian forces operating in the air and on the ground are legally covered if, for example, civilians are killed by accident.
Second, there is simply no rush for Australia to start air strikes. Last week's United Nations meeting was extraordinary for the unanimity on the need to deal with the Islamic State. The Americans, British and French are already carrying out strikes. There are only so many targets on a given day.
Nor are those targets going to disappear any time soon. The war that Australia is slipping into in daily increments is going to last a while.
