Imagine a very hypothetical situation.

You are in New York, the UN Ambassador of a country which has just been hit by a vast natural disaster which has killed thousands of your fellow-citizens. But the regime running the country is refusing to let international assistance into the country, probably causing thousands of new deaths.

What goes through your mind?

You want – need – to stay in your job. You wangled it through your close private business contacts with the top members of the regime, who carefully noted down and much appreciated your verbose professions of undying loyalty.

Yet now that you are in New York mingling at the highest levels with the ‘international community’, life looks rather different.

Those Western people and values the regime detests so much are, well, not so bad. Even the youthful British Ambassador from the hated former colonial power has been friendly enough when you have bumped into him on the diplomatic circuit.

Normally you stay close to your regional Ambassadorial colleagues. But since the disaster struck your country they too have been acting a bit differently. Their polite enquiries about how things are going back home seem to ring false.

Are they too wondering how you can stand there swilling the UN community’s expensive wine and canapes while your people die from fast-spreading diseases brought about by lack of the massive emergency assistance they needed, and which the leadership you represent are too incompetent – or wicked – to provide?

And so many other colleagues representing countries which have offered assistance are now glancing at you in some embarrassment, turning their backs a tiny fraction to keep you out of their groups at the receptions.

Of course, it was not that easy before. All those hypocritical human rights lobbies had made life tough. But then there was plenty of personal cynical solidarity to be found among that large group of Ambassadors who represented repressive corrupt regimes and did not care tuppence for pluralism.

This is different. Even many of those colleagues seem a bit more distant now.

You have no good options. The sparse reports sent from HQ are obvious propaganda rubbish. There is too much bad news from home out there on the Internet to be made up, even by the CIA. HQ do not want to hear your private advice that your country’s reputation is taking a heavy blow.

You had thought that even if they ran a tough ship they were inching in the right direction. National independence is precious and worth many sacrifices.

But this latest calamity has shown an aspect of the regime’s character which even you had not expected – a readiness to let die thousands of your fellow-citizens for no good reason at all 

Plus some of your own relatives are in the worst-affected areas. You have not heard news of them, even though they were well-off and well-connected by local standards.

What to do?

The dark thought of defecting, of resigning and seeking political asylum in America, has crossed your mind. But how?

The Americans would expect you to spill the beans on the regime’s inner dealings and weaknesses. You have beans aplenty to spill. But your family honour would take an eternal hit. Your best friends and closest relatives back home might simply disappear. You could never go home safely.

Too Awful.

Time to get ready for the Bohemian National Day reception. But you do not look foward it.

Just getting there will be disagreeable. Your wife has lost a cousin, maybe several others. She is grief-stricken and refuses to go out. She is screaming at the regime, despite your whispered warnings that the Embassy’s Security Section may have microphoned your large flat.

And even your driver is now sullen – he too has relatives in the disaster area.

Yes, despite all the glamour and prestige Ambassadors can have a lonely, painful job.

If only people appreciated that rather more…