Between a rock and a hard place?

Reader question:

Would you please explain the phrase “between a rock and a hard place”?

My comments:

This is an American idiom, and a great one.

Got to love American idioms – They’re simple, vivid and you can often guess out their meaning from a literal analysis of the words involved.

A rock, you see, is a hard place. And therefore if you get stuck in between a rock and a hard place, you’re caught between two hard places. Or two rocks, take your pick. And you’re unable to move because there’s little room for maneuvering in there.

In other words, you’re in difficulty, facing tough choices to make, getting caught between two opposing forces that are equal in strengths. You don’t know whether to turn left or right, or go forward or take a step back.

Still in other useful words, you’re in a dilemma, or in a quandary.

In colloquial terms, you’re in a fix, or in a pickle.

You can say, for instance, that US President Barack Obama is currently caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock is BP, the oil giant responsible for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The hard place is the local oil industry. In the wake of the oil spill, Obama suspended all offshore drilling – until further safety measure are secured. But that has since drawn the wraths of the local oil industry, which creates thousands of lucrative jobs. Protesters, current or potential job losers, say they’re the wrong people to get punished for BP’s big blunder.

They have a point.

Right now, Obama is in a quandary but in the long run, expect him to smack the “rock” and seek shelter in the “hard place”. That is, expect the US Government to slap heavy fines on BP while gradually loosening the grip on offshore drilling. In this case, the “rock” (British Petroleum) will be the softer part because, spill or no spill, the oil lobby is simply too great a nut to crack for any President – American offshore drilling must continue.

In the words of Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice-presidential candidate: Drill, baby, drill.

Anyways, here are recent media examples of people getting stuck between rocks and hard places:

1. The federal government’s overhaul of the skilled migration program could damage Australia’s reputation abroad, the federal opposition has warned.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans announced today that Labor would cancel and refund the applications of 20,000 prospective migrants living overseas.

The list of occupations in demand will also be tightened so only highly skilled migrants will be eligible for a visa.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said there would be big transition costs associated with the changes, which would hit the international education sector hard.

This is because there are many foreign students already taking courses on the in-demand list, whose study might no longer improve their chances of permanent migration.

“There’ll be many students who’ll be caught between a rock and a hard place,” Mr Morrison told reporters in Canberra.

“It addition ... there’ll be a lot of pressure on those colleges [catering to overseas students] and I suspect many will fail.

“That will obviously have impacts for jobs.”

Australia’s reputation as a destination for skilled migration could be jeopardized as a result, he said.

He urged the government to ensure that two-thirds of Australia’s migration program came from the skilled workforce.

“It’s important skilled migration remain the dominant component of our migration intake because it ... contributes to the economy, that pays the taxes, that pays for the hospitals and the roads and the services,” he said.

- Migration U-turn: ‘caught between a rock and a hard place’, The Sidney Morning Herald, February 8, 2010.

2. The Obama team was caught Wednesday between a rock and a hard place as it tried to navigate between key allies Israel and Turkey following an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish ship, analysts said.

U.S.-Turkish ties have already come under strain over Ankara’s diplomacy with Iran and risk further friction over the deadly commando raid Monday on a Turkish-flagged ship carrying aid to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, analysts said.

The clash on the high seas — which came after Turkey backed the six-ship aid flotilla in defiance of an Israeli and Egyptian blockade of Gaza — points up Turkey’s growing bid to set its own course in the Middle East, they added.

Unlike the harsh denunciations of Israel from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Barack Obama declined Tuesday to condemn the Jewish state, but he did reach out to Turkey.

The president spoke to Erdogan to express “deep condolences” over the deaths on board the ship — four of the nine dead were Turks — and to say Washington was working with Israel on the release of impounded vessels and passengers.

A senior U.S. State Department official sought to stress that the two-hour meeting in Washington on Tuesday between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was a good one between allies.

“It was not an acrimonious meeting at all,” the official said on the condition of anonymity when queried by reporters.

“The foreign minister and the secretary both reflected on the fact that we are clearly friends of Turkey, we’re friends of Israel and we will approach this as close allies and friends,” he added.

However, analyst Steven Cook said, “when it comes down to it, we are going to fall closer to the Israelis than to the Turks on a variety of issues.”

- Israeli raid ‘puts Obama stuck between a rock and a hard place’, RawStory.com, June 2, 2010.