The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2004

sense. For us to push them actually makes it less likely to come to fruition. FSJ : In your view, has our inter- vention in Iraq been successful? RP : I felt at the time that it was a tragic mistake to go in there, that we were going to have a great deal of dif- ficulty in the aftermath, and that it would engender a good deal of hostil- ity toward us in the region. I think all those assumptions have been vindi- cated. I also think that if we are safer today than we were on Sept. 11, 2001, it’s because of the security measures we’ve taken, not because we went into Iraq. That action has actually made us less safe. FSJ : If there should be a stable, democratic government in Iraq, do you think it will help pave the way for democratization in the region? RP : Oh, yes. Anytime you have a successful change, and the result is beneficial, that’s going to have an effect on others. And I hope that is the result in Iraq, but I don’t think we can count on it. We are a long way from a stable Iraq today. FSJ : How serious do you think Libya is about moving closer to the West? RP : They’ve been talking in those terms for some time. Martin Indyk (formerly NEA assistant secretary) published an interesting commentary on this in the March 9 Financial Times , pointing out that the Libyans were talking about breaking out of their isolation back in 1999. And I think that desire is the real cause of the change. Iraq may have increased somewhat their fears of American “cowboyism,” but they were already moving in that direction on their own. FSJ : So this is an evolutionary change, then? RP : Yes. Qaddafi is so unpre- dictable that one never knows for sure, but it looks like he is serious about coming clean and restoring ties. FSJ : Have you met him? RP : Not to my knowledge. FSJ : How successful do you believe we have been in getting out the message that the war on terror- ism is not a war on Arabs or Muslims? RP : I don’t think we’ve been suc- cessful at all. The restrictions we’ve had to introduce on travel and so forth inevitably create the appear- ance of discrimination against Muslims. I don’t think there is any- thing we can do about that other than be as tactful and careful as pos- sible in implementing the policies. FSJ : You’ve had a wide-ranging career with several phases — you’ve been a soldier, a diplomat, a teacher, an administrator, an editor, and an author. Have the transitions been difficult, or have you always seen yourself as pursuing several different interests at the same time? RP : Aside from my desire to maintain the world’s peace, what really motivated me and my wife to go into the Foreign Service was a desire to live abroad and meet other people and learn about foreign cul- tures. I’ve been fascinated by these things ever since we started. Also, I’ve always been intellectually curi- ous about why people are doing cer- tain things and what it means. And that has led me to write, and read, and study. I’ve been too busy to worry unduly about shifting from one thing to another. FSJ : When you retired from the Foreign Service in 1980 after 31 years to become the diplomat-in-res- idence at the University of Virginia, was that transition particularly diffi- cult? RP : Yes, going from being an ambassador to a college professor was the hardest transition I made. After being in a situation where every day was divided up into 15- minute intervals during which I’d see visitors, and people were constantly asking me for answers to their ques- tions, suddenly my telephone was no longer ringing. And nobody cared what I was doing, not even my fellow professors, as far as I could tell. That took a real adjustment; I think it took me five or six years to deprogram myself and stop talking like an NEA officer. Maybe I still am! FSJ : How long were you at the University of Virginia? RP : I was at U. Va. for two years, during which time I also held down the job of editor of the Middle East Journal . And then I decided there wasn’t enough going on regarding the Middle East in Charlottes- ville to keep me busy, so I moved back to Washington. I kept working at the Middle East Journal, but not quite full time. FSJ : And you were the first pres- ident of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, right? RP : Yes, [former FSI director] Steve Low hired me for that. But I stayed at the magazine for another year or so before leaving to devote more time to ADST. FSJ : And then what? RP : I’d been thinking for years about the theme of miscalculations in diplomacy and wanted to write a book on the subject. And I thought the way to do it was to get a fellow- ship at the Woodrow Wilson Center at the Smithsonian, which I did. And I’ve been a casual laborer ever since. For example, during the 1992-93 academic year, I was the Stephen Scarff Distinguished Visiting Pro- 58 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 4