Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's "acceptance" of the US missile strike on Syria is diplomacy at its best. Photo/file
"THEY were never going to let me be President." Those words were attributed to Hillary Clinton at the moment she learned from her campaign manager, Robby Mook, of her loss of the 2016 election for US President.
It wasn't a good moment for women, not only because of the results of the election which saw 53 per cent of white women preferring a misogynist, confessed serial sex abuser over Clinton, but because of the syntax of that statement, its passive voice and its air of personal injury.
On other fronts, it's recently been a good time for women in leadership roles.
When Southwest Airline Flight 1380 lost its port engine, there was a possibility of a disaster in the making. The flight was on the way from New York to Dallas and had reached 30,000 feet when the engine blew apart, a metal fragment blowing out a window, with the loss of cabin pressure nearly sucking out a passenger, who later died.
The plane veered sharply to starboard and started a rapid descent, but the pilot in charge, Tammie Jo Shults, soon had the plane under control, evened out the descent and landed safely.
Everyone — passengers, crew, ground controllers — gave Captain Shults, a former Navy fighter pilot, credit for her skill, her professionalism and her calm demeanour. "Nerves of steel" said one passenger. "Just doing my job", said the captain.
On the local level there is the quality of leadership of our PM, Jacinda Ardern.
Her announcement of ending future oil and gas exploration of our coasts was certain to bring criticism from fossil fuel interests. In her steadfast pushback, she could point to the continuing of existing leases, the future of more jobs in renewable than fossil-derived sources and the ultimate goal of preserving the health of the country and the planet.
Much space has been devoted to Ms Ardern's statement that she "accepts", rather than supports or condemns, US President Trump's missile firing on Syria.
The Nats, with their history of enthusiastic following of America's military misadventures ("Get some guts!") are critical of her balanced diplomatic way of letting Trump be Trump. The Greens would have liked a strong condemnation. But to what end?
Just the same question could be asked about the bombing itself. To what end?
The bombing has no basis in international law. There was no UN authorisation, no UN resolution to carry even a thin veneer of legality. Under the UN charter, an attack by one nation against another may be justified as self-defence.
Syria, like Iraq before it, poses no threat to US interests or the interests of the UK, or France for that matter. For the US, the decision by Trump is contrary to the Constitution, which invests the Congress, not the President, with power to go to war.
Trump rushed to bomb before inspectors could establish proof and responsibility for the alleged chemical weapons attack.
Then there are the theatrics of the bombing. It was carefully co-ordinated with the Russians in advance. The object was to clear them from the air space lest a missile accidentally damage Russians on the ground or the air and create the potential for further conflict, something neither Trump nor Putin wants.
Assad, with Russian backing, is well nigh to winning Syria's civil war, according to most military analysts. The US-led missile firing changes nothing of the facts on the ground.
Trump, like George W. Bush, does not "do nuance". He also perceives no irony when, like his predecessor, he labels this futility "mission accomplished". The one thing accomplished is giving Kim Jong-un another good reason not to give up his nuclear capability.
Ardern's acceptance, a "damning with faint praise", is diplomacy at its best. No need to give Trump another Twitter target for his petulance and no reason to actively support an empty, illegal military gesture.
Hemingway would have credited Ardern with "duende," grace under pressure. In our modern idiom, she's plenty cool.
■ Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.