American Foreign Policy Is Very Important To Us. Please Stay On The Line.

Washington has finally found a foreign-policy process that can survive a change of administration: asking Elon Musk’s company to fiddle with the connection.

Reuters reported on October 23 that both the Biden and Trump administrations had asked SpaceX to activate or deactivate Starlink services in different countries. Its account, based on former senior officials and other people familiar with the requests, describes efforts involving Iran, Ukraine, Yemen and Lebanon. The requests were historical; their previously unreported extent is the new development.

So there is continuity in American government. Unfortunately, it may be the hold music.

Picture the imaginary federal customer-service menu. Press one to support an ally. Press two to interrupt an adversary. Press three if an ally has become an adversary since your ticket was opened. To hear a stirring speech about American sovereignty, remain on the line while we locate the person who controls the router.

This is not an argument that every request was improper. Preventing hostile groups from using communications equipment and helping people get online can be legitimate objectives. It is an argument that a superpower should be embarrassed when its institutional diagram starts looking like a household negotiating with the cable company.

The bipartisan part is especially efficient. Republicans and Democrats can spend an entire campaign disagreeing about the direction of the country, then converge on the same customer-support queue. One asks for a different policy. The other asks for a different policy in a more aggressive font. Both need someone at the company to pick up.

Reuters says at least some terminals used by Iranian-linked groups were deactivated, according to former officials. It also notes that neither the Trump administration nor SpaceX had publicly confirmed activation of the Iran terminals discussed in its account. SpaceX did not respond to the news agency’s requests for comment. Those qualifications matter: a government request is not proof that the requested switch was flipped.

Which makes the customer-service metaphor almost unfair to customer service. At least a decent help desk sends a ticket number.

Private companies supply governments with useful things. The problem is allowing usefulness to become indispensability and then pretending that dependency is just procurement wearing a nice tie. At that point, oversight becomes a meeting about whether anyone has a more direct number.

Imagine the next State Department briefing: the United States remains committed to its allies, its principles and the estimated callback window of between eight and twelve.

Your sovereignty is very important to us. Please do not hang up and develop an alternative. You will lose your place in the queue.

Source: Reuters, published October 23, via AOL. The customer-service menu and briefing are satirical inventions, not actual communications.