Excessively Logical: The Daily Overdose of Logic for Monday, 24 October 2011: The United States Plays Charades in Syria

Robert Ford is a hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is (he is from This the Finest of All States, after all). The Obama administration's recently installed ambassador to Syria is a highly competent career diplomat who speaks five languages. More than that, he has the incredible strength of the United States Foreign Service at his disposal to, among other things, keep him safe.

So to withdraw Mr. Ford from Damascus because of a "credible threat to his personal safety" is a decision that was almost certainly not made for light and transient causes; the withdrawal of an ambassador is usually the most serious indication, short of closing the embassy altogether, that the security situation in a country is completely inadequate. And here is the White House, insisting that Ambassador Ford's recall stateside does not imply a severing of formal diplomatic relations with Syria.

To which I ask: why the hell not?

I am as willing as the next acerbic malcontent--perhaps more willing, even--to buy into the theory that we are bearing witness to the embryonic stages of American imperial decline, but not even I am going to pretend that the United States is not, by a colossal margin, still the most powerful country on Earth by any realistic definition of power. Nearly every country on Earth has little to gain and much to fear by aggravating we Yanks. Maintaining formal diplomatic relations, and at least some degree of civility in those relations, with the United States confers tangible benefits on you, whether you're Canada or Iran or Tonga.

Not to sound like Thomas Friedman here--and if I ever start too much resembling Mr. Suck On This, every reader of this blog has an open invitation to brain me with a crowbar--but why doesn't America leverage that reliance to obligate other nations to uphold some sort of greater ideal? (I mean, apart from the fact that the federal government, for its own part, long ago abandoned upholding greater ideals.) Too often, the President and the public appear to view foreign policy as a blunt instrument with a limited range; either your prime minister is in Washington for lunch and a convivial game of darts with POTUS every other month, or we'll meet with you but sneer at your every word and make it clear that we're not really listening (thereby giving you leave to not take us seriously). Whatever happened to the aggressive use of soft power? Whatever happened to the pen, and tongue, of a diplomat striking just as much fear into a foreign leader as that aircraft carrier offshore?

We all know, of course, that the effective use of what we might call "hard soft" power--e.g. pulling our ambassador out of your country because you're really behaving quite badly--is now barred by the rules of modern foreign relations, a set of proscriptions so byzantine, ephemeral, and pretentious that they would make a member of Louis XIV's royal court feel right at home. We may be miffed at Syria, but the niceties must always be observed, mustn't they? We wouldn't want to commit a faux pas, after all. But when you're a country that claims it is a tireless defender of human rights and self-determination, and you're dealing with a witless, heartless, conniving tyrant committing gross human rights abuses in the pursuit of literally nothing but his own iron-fisted grip on power--a person like Bashar al-Assad, perhaps--mightn't it be worth breaking those rules?

The calculation might be different if there were legitimate American interests in Syria, or if there were a significant chance that Syria could perpetrate some sort of meaningful retaliation, or if there were a large American expat community in Syria that might be endangered, or even if the greater region might be (further) destabilized, in the event of the embassy's closure. None of those things are true. It is time for America to recognize that there is currently no value in giving even lip service to recognizing Syria, and at least a symbolic benefit to be had in refusing to do so. It is time to sever diplomatic relations with Damascus.

It is time, in short, for this country to play a little dirty.

While you were getting drunk over the last two and a half days: President Obama claimed that all American troops will be out of Iraq by the end of the year--HAHAHAHAHA YEAH RIGHT. Silvio Berlusconi was the laughingstock at a summit of the European Central Bank--a well-deserved pillorying. And Northwestern lost in its usual manner, while Michigan State won in a decidedly unusual manner--Pat Fitzgerald gets far worse than he deserves, while Bret Bielema gets far better.

In other insufficiently logical news:

World: Libya's interim government says it will conduct a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding Muammar Gaddafi's death. Because if there's one thing that just screams "credibility," it's the conclusions of a commission that has been hastily convened by a newly installed North African government, whose subject is the man that government's leaders just fought tooth-and-nail to remove. It will be interesting, but not particularly illuminating or definitive, to see what comes of this probe. Meanwhile, Turkey, which appeared (and, frankly, still appears) to be just a short step away from getting a seat at the big people's table, is having an absolutely horrible week.

America: The President is out stumping here in the West (Las Vegas and Los Angeles today, Denver tomorrow), but that isn't stopping him, apparently, from meddling in home refinance rules. Again. The change, as it is billed, is not all that noxious--hey, everybody deserves a second chance, so allowing everybody to refinance if they haven't missed payments, no matter how much they owe, is fine, right? The change, as it really is, is something much more sinister--yet more restrictions on the power of the free market (and yes, even TEH EEVUHL BANKZ are part of the free market) to decide what is best for it. (I admit that I may be mistaken, and if I am, please correct me in the comments, but I read this change as foreclosing (ha! get it?) banks from setting limits on the circumstances under which an up-to-date homeowner can refinance.)

Business: If the payments embargo against WikiLeaks isn't lifted soon, the group claims, it will have to end its subversive and heroic activities by the end of the year. Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, et al. have, and should have, every legal right to do what they are doing to WikiLeaks. It doesn't mean they aren't colossal anti-freedom pricks. (Full disclosure: I am a proud donor to WikiLeaks.)

Colorado: Federal district judge John L. Kane is not happy with the City of Denver's dragging its feet in producing hundreds of thousands of pages of documents relating to one of the several ugly lawsuits pending against the Denver Police Department (in this case, an excessive force suit stemming from an alleged March 2008 beating). He is so unhappy, in fact, that he has threatened to send the U.S. Marshals to take the documents by force. And this is no empty threat, either: he has mobilized the Marshals before, to seize the entire archive of the city's Internal Affairs Bureau. The Mile-High City may have an ugly police brutality problem which is only belatedly being addressed; good for Judge Kane for being willing to provide some much-needed sunlight (the best disinfectant, after all).

The national pastime: Hoo, boy, is the World Series getting fun. After Derek Holland and--as my new all-time favorite local newscaster (whose name, sadly, I do not know) called it last night--his "prepubescent mustache" utterly dominated the suddenly fearsome Cardinals lineup last night, the Fall Classic is tied at two games apiece, with the teams' respective aces (Chris Carpenter for St. Louis, C.J. Wilson for Texas) going tonight in the final game in Arlington. This is the most fun I have had watching a World Series in a long time; if you're not paying attention, you're seriously missing out.

Anti-depressant: