Interview with US Diplomat Peter Van Buren: Wisdom for American Public Diplomacy

EXCLUSIVE! JB e-mail interview with US diplomat Peter Van Buren, author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People (2011); a review of the book at;  Van Burens' blog at

Why did you join the Foreign Service?

I started the process of joining the FS in the mid-1980's. Out of grad school I received a scholarship to spend two years in Japan. I learned Japanese and found living abroad more interesting than living in central Ohio, and wanted to stay. Even though that time was the “Japan boom,” when Japan was to be Number One and crush the US, companies wanted people who both spoke Japanese and had some sort of business degree. That closed that door, as my MA was in Education. I looked into the military but decided I was just not the martial type. I read about the Foreign Service, passed the test at the Consulate in Osaka and wandered into work as an Foreign Service officer. To be honest, I was not entirely sure what the job was all about, but I knew it would keep me abroad, and, selected into the Consular cone, it seemed like I'd be helping people.

Why did you elect to go to Iraq?

The first 15 years or so of my career were great, exactly what I had hoped for. I enjoyed Consular work, particularly helping American citizens. As I say in my book, We Meant Well, this was the benign side of the American Empire, the ability and willingness to help our own people anywhere in the world. I was pleased and amazed to know that our government cared enough about its own citizens that we'd extend help to the most broken-down drug dealer arrested in Outer Carjackistan pretty much same as we did when Bill Gates lost his passport in Tokyo once. We were probably more polite to Bill and we did keep the office open an hour late to accommodate him, but you get the idea.

Fast forward to 2009. A series of bad assignment choices had landed me in Washington, bored with my job and bored with life in America. At the same time, my oldest daughter had chosen an expensive private college and a few extra bucks were needed. The confluence of a bunch of State Department inside-baseball stuff-- hitting my five year limit on this domestic assignment, being a hardship post Fair Share candidate and looking unenthusiastically at my chances for entering the Senior Foreign Service-- all pointed in one direction. I joke it was the nexus of terrorism and tuition in the book. So, I volunteered for any PRT in Iraq or Afghanistan (Pakistan was not on the go-to list at that time). I'll admit a smidgen of sense of duty and a dollop of curiosity about the wars as well. I was certainly not a True Believer nor entirely happy about the danger and time away from my family, but had crossed those bridges with the Foreign Service ethic years before. Iraq/Afghan service was, in my mind, a lot like the rest of the Foreign Service life, only more so.

Why do you think the U.S. invaded Iraq? Was it a wise decision?

That said, personally I opposed the war in Iraq and believed it to be a really stupid decision by the US, a pointless waste of lives, money and American prestige. My concerns very much mirrored the list you John created when you resigned [1], albeit far less well-articulated. I never considered resignation; my head was still then very much in the space of “I do Consular work” about as far from “politics” as I could be in a Cabinet agency like the State Department. I always characterized my work as separate from what the POL and ECON sections upstairs at the Embassy did. While they were worried about US military bases in Japan, I was worried about individual passports. I was comfortable with that, seeing it as a positive thing, not a “I'm not as good as the real diplomats thing” that can plague some Consular officers.

This may have been why what I saw in Iraq so shocked me. I was very unused to the, well, disingenuous chatter that seems to me now in retrospect to characterize much of what the non-Consular parts of State do on a daily basis. I had this, perhaps naive, very practical conception of our work. Consular at its best is about real problem solving: mentally ill American Citizen in the lobby, what are you gonna do? Faced with someone shouting incoherently and undressing in your waiting area, there is no room for a carefully conceived statement of concern, cleared by 18 offices over a three week period. You actually have to do something. In this sense, I was really, really the wrong guy to send into Iraq.

If, as your book suggests, you were so disillusioned with (and during) your tour in Iraq, why did you stay on as you did? Did you consider leaving the Foreign Service while serving on a Provincial Reconstruction Team in that country?

Like the stages of grief, I went through each in turn in Iraq. My initial mindset was to just keep on doing at my PRT whatever was already in progress, slide through my generous home leaves and get through my year as easily as possible. That plan, like any in warfare, lasted only until first contact. Almost from day one, as I recount in my book, I encountered fraud, waste and, well, stupidity. It was obvious to anyone that what we were doing made no sense, spending crazy amounts of money on obviously unconnected, feel good projects without much guidance. Disbelief and then denial as my boss, his boss and eventually the DCM in Baghdad told me that that was pretty much what the PRT program was about, albeit in nice words. I then tried living with Denial, the idea that if so little was expected of me, I could deliver that-- striving for mediocrity and often achieving it. No one before me had seen this PRT thing as a practical problem to resolve but instead simply as a time-space to fill until one's tour was over and one could go on to a sunny favored assignment somewhere better.

Most State PRT people I met saw it that way, agreeing (very) privately it made no sense but stating (very) publicly that it was not our problem to solve, just our job to carry out. It was, I came to understand, the ultimate expression of the gray man philosophy that haunts State-- our job is to drone-like carry out orders. Thinking gets you into trouble, speaking about problems dooms your career as a “troublemaker.”

My motives for going to Iraq remained what they were, however impure. I still needed the money, still needed to reset my five year timer in Washington with another kid in high school and all that, so I stayed in Iraq. I briefly tried to influence the projects my PRT did (failed), tried to get on the team and happily sign off on things (failed), tried to convince my boss that what we were doing was not accomplishing anything for Iraq (failed) and by that time, I was two months away from the end of my year. So I never really thought about quitting.

Since all that has happened with the book, people ask why I do not resign. My answer is that I have no reason to do so. I wrote a book documenting what I saw in Iraq. I am certain that had you followed me around for a year you would have seen and heard what I wrote down. I see what I did as documentary, not necessarily dissent per se. In that what I saw and wrote deviates from what State's vision of Iraq is is I guess the issue. I note that no one, not a single person in the USG nor any reviewer, has contested anything in the book. No one has said, hey, that story about the chicken plant is wrong, or incomplete or made up. No one, nothing. All of the attacks, the criticism, has been ad hominem attacks against me as a person. State people say I should not air dirty laundry, or I should use the dissent channel, or I should have been more respectful in my language, less sarcastic in tone like a “diplomat” should be, I should have done this or that. But no one has challenged the content, and that is because they really can't. It is all true.

So why should I have quit? Why should I resign? I just wrote a book. Instead, I'd like to get back to work. The languages I speak, the skills I have, the experience I developed over 23 years has not changed. It is more like I have failed some ideological test.

Reports are that you lost your security clearance at the State Department. Why? What is your current role at the Department?

Ostensibly my security clearance was suspended because I linked to a Wikileaks document on my blog in August at, but it seems to me it has more to do with the book than that single blog post.

As I write this, my security clearance is still “temporarily suspended” and I am still on “admin leave” for over 40 days. I am prohibited in writing from entering any State Department facility. Human Resources physically took away my badge. I am paid because Foreign Service rules require that for Foreign Service officers (but not if I was a civil servant in similar circumstances) but otherwise the Department has essentially “disappeared” me. I belong to no office, cannot enter any building and might as well have a scarlet A carved into my forehead. I feel no shame over this (maybe some disappointment, some bitterness) and have openly discussed my situation on my blog at. I believe in sunshine as the best cure for bureaucracy, and so have posted most of the documents connected with my situation and keep things updated as to my status.

Does the State Department, in your view, need to be reformed? If so, how?

Yes. The reforms needed are pretty much covered in my next answer.

Would you advise young -- and not so young -- people to join the US Foreign Service?

Before getting dumped into admin leave limbo, my position was at the Board of Examiners, where for over a year since returning from Iraq I administered the Oral Exam and helped choose the next generation of Foreign Service officers. I was competent at the task, got a good performance review and, after a year on the job, it was only after my book came out that State decided I could not work there.

So, I spent a lot of time around people interested in a Foreign Service career. They did not ask for advice and at the Board we did not offer it. However, since my book came out and I have gotten some media attention, ironically more people now approach me with your same question about joining the Foreign Service. Too much irony these days.

What I tell them is this: think very, very carefully about a Foreign Service career. The State Department is looking for a very specific kind of person and if you are that person, you will enjoy your career and be successful. I have come to understand that the Department wants smart people who will do what they are told, believing that intelligence can be divorced from innovation and creativity. Happy, content compliance is a necessary trait. The Department will not give you any real opportunity for input for a very long time, years, if ever. Even Consular work, which used to offer some space, now has fallen victim to standardization as posts must conform web sites to a single model, for example. There is no agreed-upon definition of success or even progress at State, no profits, no battles won, no stock prices to measure. Success will be to simply continue to exist, or whatever your boss says it is, or both, or neither. You may never know what the point is other than a Congressional delegation go away “happy,” whatever that even is.

At the same time, State has created a personnel system that will require you to serve in more and more dangerous places, and more and more unaccompanied places, as a routine. That sounds cool and adventurous at age 25, but try and imagine if you'd still be happy with it at age 45 with a spouse and two kids. What are your core obligations with a child who needs some extreme parenting as you leave your wife at home alone with him for a year?

Understand that promotions and assignments are more and more opaque. Changes in Congress will further limit pay and benefits. Your spouse will be un/under employed most of his/her life. Your kids will change schools for better or worse every one, two or three years. Some schools will be good, some not so good, and you'll have no choice unless you are willing to subvert your career choices to school choices, as in let’s go to Bogota because the schools are good even if the assignment otherwise stinks. You'll serve more places where you won't speak the language and get less training as requirements grow without personnel growth. As you get up there, remember your boss can arbitrarily be a used car salesman who donated big to the President's campaign. Make sure all these conditions make sense to you now, and, if you can, as you imagine yourself 10, 15 and 20 years into the future. It is a very unique person who can say “Yes” truthfully and after real soul-searching.

According to the Washington Post (“State Department readies Iraq operation, its biggest since Marshall Plan”), the Department will be in charge of 16,000 civilians dispatched to Iraq “to take over Iraq operations from the U.S. military."  What advice would you give these civilians?

Think carefully about accepting your assignment.

Security post-military withdrawal is a huge unknown. Will civil war restart in Iraq? Will Sadr, et al, target the Embassy? Will State's mercenary army of contractors work out? If you are injured, where in Iraq will you get care past simple first aid? Where will the blood supply come from, the burn unit, the class A trauma care? Quite literally, will you live through your assignment or will you die in place as a symbol of State's “commitment?” Be sure to read my most recent piece on The Huffington Post at.

What will you do there? If you are just going to punch a ticket and/or maybe make money, this may not matter. Otherwise, how will you feel about perhaps never/rarely leaving the compound? Meeting only with select members of the Iraqi government? In fact, what will 16,000 people really do? Is there that much work in Iraq, more than in Beijing, Tokyo, London or wherever? How much busy-work are you comfortable with for a year?

If you work in Management or Diplomatic Security, will you be content as largely a contract manager? Do you conceive your role as primarily making sure contractors do their jobs? Are you comfortable when the Inspector General comes looking a few years from now with the things you'll be required to sign off on?

Are you happy with the rewards versus the costs? With Iraq, Afghan and Pakistan service becoming the norm, there are no more automatic promotions, far fewer magic assignments from Baghdad to Paris, little to no corridor reputation credibility left. Talk with your colleagues if they'll talk about the rampant drinking on compounds, the infidelity, the mental health costs.

Make sure the juice is worth the squeeze before you accept that assignment to Iraq.

And finally, a more general question: What is your vision of the global role of the United States in the 21st century?

The U.S. will face a continued stagnation on the world stage. When we, perhaps semi-consciously, made a decision to accept an Empire role after World War II, we never build the tools of Empire. No colonial service, no securing of critical resources, no carrot and sticks. We sort of settled on a military-only model of soft occupation. We made few friends or allies, accepting reluctant partners. As changes take place in the developing world, the most likely American people there encounter now wears a uniform and carries a weapon. By ideologicizing every challenge from Communism to the entire religion of Islam, we have assured ourselves of never really winning any struggle.

America faced a choice and blew it. As an Empire, we either needed to take control of the world's oil or create a more equitable and less martial global society to ensure our access to it. We did neither. We needed either to create a colonial system for adventures like Iraq or Afghanistan along the Victorian model, or not try to invade and rebuild those places. We did neither.

Simply pouring more and more lives and money into the military is a one way street going in the wrong direction. We can keep spending, but when millions of dollars spent on weapons can be deflected by terror acts that cost nothing, we will lose. When any hearts and minds efforts are derailed by yet another excused collateral damage episode, we will lose.

For most of the next century, America still has a big enough military that our “decline” will be slow, bloody and reluctant. But, inevitable nonetheless.

[1] See (JB footnote)