Column: What happens when the words of representatives lose meaning?

Scouting the room for fellow civilians among a sea of naval uniforms, I spotted a table in the back of the mess hall that was dotted with both and took a seat.

This was at a dinner at the political science conference on the relationship between gender equity and peacebuilding at the U.S. Naval Academy I attended last year. The eyes of a servicemember at my table flashed up when she recognized a scholar who had worked in Iraq sit down to my left.

Over the course of the dinner, the two of them exchanged reflections in their own shared vocabulary: the ethics of intervention in Iraq. And so as we sat in the safety of the large mess hall, this high-ranking servicemember confided in us over salads. She said she was gripped with doubt over her time flying planes in Iraq.

The experience, she said, of working on behalf of American ideals but without a guarantee that policymakers with the intelligence in Washington were seeking the good of the Iraqi people was stomach-twisting. She will carry the memories and doubts about the orders she carried out all her life, she said. It is because of this experience that she pursued a Ph.D. in political science.

Hearing her speak, I felt the gravity of words in diplomacy, the weight of American policy on human lives across the world.

But it also struck me what a powerful contract politicians’ promises were. When politicians and diplomats in the U.S. speak on the international stage, they set out their rationale for policy and their ethical argument as a kind of binding contract.

When those that represent the authority of a nation speak, they set policy. When representatives of the United States claim a moral rationale for policy, the world can hold them accountable if they fail that rationale.

But what happens when representatives’ words seem to lose their meaning? This week, the world was shaken by what appears to be a chemical attack on civilians by the Syrian government. President Trump blamed President Obama’s decision to not act on the “red line” he set. Yet President Trump said that the attack in Syria “crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line, many, many lines.” When pressed on what that means, he said, “I’m not saying I’m doing anything one way or another.”

On the campaign trail, Trump used an expletive to describe how he would bomb ISIS and send in Exxon to take its oil.

Much of the foreign policy world is now debating the meaning of the words he used concerning Syria.

Deciphering those words is necessary, but I hope we can also reflect on the shift in how this administration uses words on the world stage. As White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer talks about the “political reality” of Assad’s power, is the administration justifying it? The language isn’t clear.

What is clear is that — unfortunately — this administration seems to signal that the rhetoric of diplomacy doesn’t matter a lot. With little poetry or graceful prose, and quite a lot of conflicting messages, it’s unclear whether this administration believes in the same human rights ideals as others or believes that statecraft can be conducted through discourse and not just missiles.

I sincerely hope that this changes. But I certainly know that if this administration makes any substantial changes to U.S. international policy or military presence, I hope that the decisions will be just. At the very least, I hope that those affected will have the dignity of a verbal contract with the politicians that carry this power.

I don’t want to have to mourn the poetry of diplomacy or those affected by its demise.