The Foreign Service Journal, January 2012

64 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 2 HowWell Did We Mean? We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People Peter Van Buren, Metropolitan Books, 2011, $25, hardcover, 269 pages. Don’t Shoot the Messenger R EVIEWED BY S TEVEN A LAN H ONLEY Peter Van Buren’s account of his year in Iraq (2009-2010) is both poetic and prosaic (and frequently profane), often in close juxtaposition. That is apt for conveying the futility and frustra- tion he experienced in trying to lead an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team stuck in the middle of nowhere, near the end of a war that had long ago lost whatever purpose it originally had. Nearly everything he says about U.S. policy in Iraq, and how it was im- plemented, rings true, thanks to the kind of colorful details that prove truth is stranger than fiction. And while most reviews of the book I’ve seen justly praise its mordant humor, Van Buren is equally effective in the more reflective passages. Yet, regrettably, We Meant Well is also chock-full of cringe-inducing pas- sages that show just how far out of his depth Van Buren, a Foreign Service officer since 1988, was in his Iraq as- signment. Take his first day on the job. Dur- ing a staff meeting dissecting a confer- ence for local nongovernmental organizations held the week before his arrival, Van Buren refused to author- ize a supplemental payment to the Iraqi conference organizer because, as he starchily declares, the request was a shakedown. Predictably, that sparked what he terms “an animated discus- sion,” during which his colleagues rightly pointed out that accusing a key local contact of dishonesty, even if true, was likely to damage working relations across the board. On the merits, Van Buren was right to question the bill. Indeed, I might well have reacted the same way in that situation. (Which is probably one of the many reasons I am a former FSO!) Yet nearly two years later, he still seems utterly clueless as to how ineffectual, and arrogant, his approach was. At a minimum, he could have played the “newbie” card and said he needed to consult Embassy Baghdad for guidance before making a decision. Instead, he dug in his heels and re- fused to temporize or haggle — even though, as he melodramatically de- clares at the end of the chapter, that night he “went to bed fully expecting to be killed in my sleep” in retaliation. That episode sets the tone for the rest of We Meant Well . Van Buren wants to be seen as a rueful hero, a sort of “Mr. Smith Goes to Iraq” figure who dares to speak truth to power, the con- sequences be damned. But even by his own account, he fell well short of the mark. Halfway through the book, he confesses: “I became inured to doing little and expecting less, and it was gallows humor fun (sic) to mock art shows and make jokes about wid- ows trying to eke out a living. I was agreeing to coast along, possessing sight but no vision.” The author expresses genuine sym- pathy for the plight of the Iraqi people, but deep contempt for virtually every- one else he met there. In particular, he dismisses his State Department col- leagues as mediocre, clueless func- tionaries who spend as little time in the field, and do as little work back in the embassy, as possible. (Speaking of the embassy, for sheer entertainment value it would be hard to beat the chapter detailing Van Buren’s own brief excur- sion to the Green Zone for consulta- tions and “re-education.”) Van Buren also takes it as a given that the U.S. Army is full of “crackers” and killers — though every so often, al- most in spite of himself, he concedes B OOKS Van Buren wants to be seen as a “Mr. Smith Goes to Iraq” hero. But he doesn’t quite pull off that feat.