throwing in the towel

Saudi Arabia has declined to join the U.N. Security Council as a non-permanent member. The council wields considerable clout at the United Nations. Though Saudi Arabia was easily approved in a General Assembly vote, the country declined the accolade:

"Allowing the ruling regime in Syria to kill its people and burn them with chemical weapons in front of the entire world and without any deterrent or punishment is clear proof and evidence of the U.N. Security Council's inability to perform its duties and shoulder its responsibilities," the Saudi Foreign Ministry said.
It also said the Council has not been able to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict over the past decades and has failed to transform the Middle East into a zone free of weapons of mass destruction.

There is something dispiriting about situations that are so intractable that (wo)men whose sanity you might like to credit simply throw in the towel ... take their bat and ball and go home: Why waste the time?

After a 16-day U.S. governmental shutdown that ended yesterday but looms again in the future, you kind of wonder who's next. The shutdown cost something like $20 billion. I wonder what the next one will cost a nation whose politicians decry wasteful spending practices.