@31,

I believe your quip is appropriate, and find because of it that I’ve been imprecise.

Rather than disagree with Rah’s comment on delegation of justice, I fully agree and am speaking to it.

Delegation is a critical managerial task, but delegation is not the managerial task. If the US set out to be Manager of The Justice in the Middle East (that is to say, were behaving managerially), I’d fully appreciate this as appropriate action and agency on its own behalf–but this wouldn’t be “delegating justice”, this would be “managing justice”, even if the principal form of this management were delegation.

In my view, nothing about delegation implies responsibility except when delegation implies management has or is happening. To say then that “the power to delegate justice is also the power to withdraw that delegation and assume it ourselves” seems either no different than saying we assumed/maintained ultimate responsibility all along, or that instead we were ‘merely delegating’ in a strict (not-responsible or at least non-liable) sense.

I, of course, advocate for disabusing the notion that lack-of-action (ISEP) is in any way ‘delegating’ or managerial or even a rational response to perceived problems of any kind. The world has not seemed to often change itself to suit my wont spontaneously; and even with great work and tempering of expectation, I often still find myself curiously unfulfilled and ignored by it, whether I’m ‘only-delegating’ or actively managing. Doing nothing is not delegating; neither is expecting ‘someone else to do it’ or for it to just ‘all work out in the end’, nor ‘it’s-someone-elses-problem’.

It seems there is a valid distinction to be made however–I just don’t think at the end of the day, it’s possible for the US to both manage justice, and delegate management at the same time. Thus, “there’s no opportunity to encourage or employ any [strictly] delegated justice in the Middle East. Any justice that may find its way into the region will be of the un-delegated variety–will be justice we (or someone) labor(s) for our(them)selves”… whether we manage it and do the work, manage it and delegate the work, or find ourselves victim to a less timid actor.