Thoughts from Baghdad

Falling down on the blog

Sun, 6 Feb 2011 22:48:46 -0500

It’s been more than six months since we arrived in Iraq, and my grand aspirations of blogging -- “Mr. and Mrs. Snipe go to Baghdad” -- have not quite come to fruition yet. An omission I intend to remedy, starting today.

Finding the time to blog is one of life's many challenges here in Baghdad. The pace of the work here at the Embassy has been unrelenting, and those moments of solitude I felt during that first year in the desert of Muthanna are few and far between. Deciding what to write has also been a formidable challenge. Two years ago, blogging about Muthanna seemed effortless - every experience was an adventure, every day a new discovery. The thrill of meeting Iraqis, the helicopters, the danger, that good Army chow, the austere conditions, my first burn-toilet (my wife has told me that I may NOT elaborate) . . . everything about my first year in Iraq was exciting. I wasn’t just blogging about a job. I was documenting the adventure of a lifetime.

Here in Baghdad, my work is exciting, challenging, stressful, and rewarding . . . but it’s not quite the -- “adventure of a lifetime.”

There are rules - many, many, many rules - here at the Embassy. Those rules extend to life on the PRTs as well, but when you are serving far away from the flagpole on some PRT in the middle of the desert, you can bend those rules a bit. There’s greater flexibility in daily operations when you are hundreds of miles away from the center of power. In Muthanna, our internal bureaucracy was our own. If a procedure hampered our ability to get the job done, we found ways to work around it to achieve our objectives.

Here at the embassy, there are layers upon layers upon layers of considerations that must be factored into each and every decision. We take fewer risks here, and for good reason: what we do and say in this nation’s capital has far greater consequences.

The need to mitigate risk is never more present than in the area of public messaging. Back in Muthanna, if I were to misspeak to the press on a reconstruction project (say, the number of sheep we inoculated last month), I would simply ring up the journalists I met with and tell them to add or subtract a zero from the sheep-count. Here in Baghdad, where specificity is everything and the devil has a permanent home in every detail, the pressure is on to get our message right 100% of the time.

The life of a diplomat in Baghdad and a diplomat serving on a PRT bear little resemblance to one another, and there's a definite trade-off.  A few months ago, Praya and I celebrated our first anniversary here in Baghdad. Being “accompanied” at an “unaccompanied” post remains the best part of serving in Iraq. You get to be here with your best friend and I couldn’t ask for a better roommate. Despite the car bombs, rocket attacks, and the reprehensible and unfathomably stupid practice of celebratory gunfire, it’s been marital bliss in Baghdad for the Snipes. Though, I'm quite sure a certain someone has had quite enough of my BlackBerry addiction.

I traded up for marital bliss, professional satisfaction, comfort, and a much better quality of life - a good trade, for sure.   But, what I lost in the bargain was access and the ability to develop relationships with Iraqis organically. The ability to spend time actually in the foreign culture is necessary in the practice of diplomacy. Baghdad is a very different place from small-town Iraq. On my first day at the Embassy, I gleefully proclaimed to an Iraqi colleague that I’d spent a year in Muthanna and relished the time I spent with Iraqis on a daily basis. My colleague looked at my enthusiasm a bit dismissively and said, “Hmmmm. Well, I think you’ll find things are a bit more complicated here in Baghdad.” She was, of course, absolutely right. But, Muthanna was my first introduction to Iraq and Iraqis. The good people of Muthanna may never know it, but they were the ones that got me hooked on Iraq. Their kindness, their warmth, their candor, and their love for their own country helped me see the greatness of Iraq.

I worked on issues in small-town Iraq, but now my days are spent dealing with the most complex issues facing the entire country of Iraq. Terrorism, sectarian violence, national reconciliation, electricity and water woes, and all of Iraq's other bugaboos are the things that leave me restless in Baghdad. Flying over Baghdad recently, I looked down on a bustling metropolis where millions fight the heat in the summer, the cold in the winter, traffic, and sometimes each other, to get ahead. Muthanna was no sanctuary from these societal woes. There was heat (a whole lot of it - much more than in Baghdad), crime, and every other societal ill known to man. But small-town Iraq, much like small-town America, is a much simpler place. Iraqis are warm and generous from north to south, but folks in small towns are generally warmer and more generous everywhere in the world. From Kajiki-cho, the town where I taught English in southern Japan, to Hughesville, Pennsylvania, where I spent summers at camp, to Rumaytha, Muthanna Province, Iraq, where the grilled kebabs and tomatoes were the sweetest I’d ever tasted, there’s something to be said about small towns.

I do like the fast-paced wheeling and dealing of Baghdad, and the complexity of Iraq’s national challenges. If I had to summarize the first six months of my tour here in one catchy phrase, it would be this: close to the issues, far from the people. I'm up to speed on everything that's happening. Yet, my ability to see, hear, smell, and taste all those things that got me smart on Iraq has diminished.

With all that said, it's good to be back back blogging, I have a few more pieces in the can ready to post, so stay tuned for more wing tips (and Jimmy Choos) from Baghdad.

Operation Heathcliff Huxtable

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:21:05 -0400

Stepping off of the US Air Force C-17 cargo plane that carried me from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad International Airport in 2008 was the beginning of what I was sure would be my one and only year in Iraq. I had thought long and hard about volunteering and when my departure day finally arrived I was ready. I had devised a rather ingenious plan I named “Operation Heathcliff Huxtable.” It was a plan many years in the making, but with Iraq on the horizon, it was time to execute. I’d answered my country’s call, stepped up to serve, after which time I’d come home to my “Claire” and we’d get started on introducing the world to Denise, Theo, Vanessa, and Rudy . . . and that dog the Huxtables never had.   With an onward assignment in the peaceful, sleepy Sultanate of Oman, starting my own Foreign Service Huxtable family would be as easy as . . . a Jell-O pudding pop.

I was a man with a plan.

Yet, I should have known from my first day in Muthanna two years ago that one year would be the beginning of a much longer relationship between me and Iraq.

On July 4, 2010, I took that same first step, once again. This time, off of a C-130 cargo plane, and back into the searing July heat of another Iraqi summer. Iraqis say that the heat in August, “burns the nails in the door” - though, it sounds much prettier in Arabic. It may still be July for a few more hours, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a nail melting somewhere in Baghdad as I type.

Having worked in Iraq once before, I was familiar with the journey back.   Transiting through the US military base in Kuwait, where I spent more than a few sleepless nights waiting to return to my Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), was an experience I remembered well. While the soldiers and airmen I’d met in Kuwait last year had long since redeployed, many of the US contractors assigned to help State Department personnel transit to Iraq were still there.  I heard the phrase, "Snipe, you still here?" more than once in Kuwait.   I felt a bit like an old pro coming back to Iraq. I spoke better Arabic, knew the drill, and was ready for what lay ahead.  Yet "Wing Tips on the Ground - Part Two" was bound to be a very different experience for a number of reasons. Chief among them was that I wasn’t returning alone.

Praya, who joined the ranks of the Snipe clan in 2009, has come to Iraq with me. Recognizing that repeated unaccompanied tours have put a strain on Foreign Service families, the State Department now allows spouses (under certain circumstances) to accompany their officer wives and husbands to places like Islamabad, Kabul, Khartoum, and Baghdad. Iraq’s capital would seem an unlikely place for a honeymoon, but we're here together, and that means everything. Gone are the days of trying to connect by phone and Skype, only to be denied a connection by a wicked sandstorm or power outage.

Much has happened in the past four weeks since we arrived. There are many things to write of our new lives in Baghdad, but finding time to do so has been a challenge.

While blogging from Muthanna, I realized that I might have taken a few shots at my pin-striped diplomatic colleagues living the high life at the Embassy in Baghdad. After having spent a year on a PRT in the middle of the desert, some diplomats (like me) have been known to develop a slight swagger in their step. I won’t lie: I feel a certain pride in having served at the tip of the spear. I once joked with a colleague that diplomats on PRTs serve at the tip of the spear, while the diplomats at the embassy serve at the tip of the spork (my colleague from the Embassy was not amused). When I volunteered to come back, this time to Baghdad, I knew I’d have to eat my words.

So with a napkin on my lap and utensils in hand, here I go: Working in Baghdad is not service at “the tip of the spork.” Life in the Embassy is no country club - this is still Iraq (though, admittedly there is a pool and tennis court). Certainly we enjoy amenities that our PRT and military colleagues don’t have out in the field. But the diplomats and development professionals working at the embassy are engaged in some of the most important work being done in American diplomacy today. As the US military draws down its forces, civilians who represent the United States in Iraq now take center-stage to implement the new relationship between our two countries. Folks here put in long hours and are burning the candle at both ends. I have a newfound appreciation for my colleagues in Baghdad, and I’m proud to count myself among them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a PRTer at heart and there’s still a little swagger left in my step. But, I’m happy to be in Baghdad, and Mrs. Huxtable and I plan on having one hell of a year.

On the road to Motown

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:30:42 -0500

I wrote the blog piece below a few months ago for the State Department’s official blog, DipNote, and wanted to post it here for those who might have missed it.

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The State Department's Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is where American diplomats come to learn the tools of their trade. A wide range of courses prepare Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) to engage the media, speak, read, and write in numerous languages, and to draft efficiently and think critically about political, economic, and human rights issues. Yet, in all the courses taught at FSI, there is a common thread: cultural competence. This critical component of diplomatic engagement is best gained when FSOs can communicate in the language of the host country. Currently FSI hosts over 1,000 students studying more than 70 languages. From Azeri to Vietnamese – and every language in between – FSI is preparing diplomats to engage foreign audiences to explain America's policies as well as our values.

It's a unique environment to study language. Each day, before 7:00 a.m., you can find students sitting in the FSI cafeteria with coffee in hand pouring over flash cards in Spanish, conjugating verbs in Farsi, practicing introductions in Czech, and explaining trade agreements in Chinese. Before I began studying language at FSI, I often found it strange when my colleagues would roam the halls between breaks, talking to themselves. That is, until a teacher stopped me in the hall one day recently to ask me (in Arabic), "Who are you talking to?" "Atakalem ma nafsi." (“Talking to myself”), I told her.

The Arabic Language Department at FSI is busy churning out students to staff our embassies across the Middle East and is always finding new and innovative ways to teach. Recently, I was able to attend a one-week, Arabic-language immersion course for advanced students. Accompanied by two professors, six students, who are headed to various countries in the Middle East, piled into a van to make the long drive from Washington, D.C., to Dearborn, Michigan, where the largest population of Arabic-speaking Americans and Legal Permanent Residents live in the United States. The trip was a fantastic (and very cost effective) opportunity to utilize a great American resource in our own backyard: an Arab-American community eager to assist U.S. diplomats in preparing to better understand the language, cultures, religions of the Middle East.

The group visited an evening Bible study session at a church, attended afternoon prayers at two local mosques, met with university students, and even worked behind the counter of one of Dearborn's finest Middle Eastern bakeries. In all of our interactions, the group found proud Americans of Arab descent eager to speak with us about our upcoming diplomatic assignments. "You are great representatives for America to work in the Middle East," one parishioner from a Chaledean Church in Dearborn told the group. "You know the language, and even more than that, you understand the culture. This serves America well," he noted. Among the many meetings with civic, religious, and law enforcement leaders, the group also attended a celebration of Lebanese Independence Day sponsored by the Lebanese Consulate General of Detroit.

While all of my colleagues (author excluded) did a tremendous job of speaking Arabic, non-stop, for the entire week, one of my Foreign Service colleagues distinguished herself as a truly outstanding linguist. Headed out on her first overseas assignment next year, Samantha Kuo took the trip's coveted “Linguist of the Immersion” award by handling the most difficult of all tasks: driving over 1,000 miles to and from Michigan, all the while taking her queues from our vehicle's GPS system . . . in Arabic. Not one wrong turn, not one missed exit; there and back again . . . quite an accomplishment, Sam. Driving around Saudi Arabia should be a breeze.

Oops . . . then again . . . maybe not.

The movie’s not over

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 08:48:43 -0500

It’s been six months since I returned from Iraq, and the transition back to a normal life in the United States has been a smooth one. As is often the case with many of my colleagues (both civilian and military) returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, I had just as many mixed feelings about being home as I did about leaving. Despite all the creature comforts of life in the U.S., full nights of restful sleep remained elusive during the first weeks back. Thoughts of projects I was unable to bring to closure, ideas that never quite came to fruition, and friends still in harm’s way consumed my thoughts during those sleepless nights. Soon enough, however, the normal patterns of life returned.

I married the amazing woman I left behind more than a year and a half ago, and began anew, a dream deferred. Reconnecting with family, friends, and everything I missed, I felt that surge of appreciation for home you feel when you’ve been away from all that you know and love for a long time - nothing like a tour in Iraq to help you appreciate all that we have in America. I also had a chance to participate in the State Department’s Hometown Diplomat Program and returned to my old high school to talk to kids about the Department and my year in Iraq. Happy, settled, and ready for the next challenge, life’s good.

I’m now spending my days as a student at the Foreign Service Institute (studying Arabic once again) and sleeping soundly through the night. Completing this last overseas assignment reminded me that some Foreign Service tours fit neatly on the shelf of memory without the slightest effort. An intricately woven basket from the walled city of Harar in eastern Ethiopia hangs proudly on our living room wall and serves as a reminder of that wild and wonderful adventure. Grilled steak tips dipped in chili powder, freshly baked bread, and a cold beer at an open-air restaurant in this historic Islamic city was a culinary delight not to be missed. That same evening, feeding a docile but very wild pack of African spotted hyenas - by hand - might have been one of the more foolish things I’ve attempted in life. But I survived it, snapped a few choice pics, and lived to tell the tale. As Foreign Service tours go, Ethiopia receded nicely into the distance.

Iraq, on the other hand, has not faded so easily. Perhaps over time my experience there will find its proper place on the bookshelf of memory and I will do what most weary travelers do when they recall places of interest from their past: remember the good times, laugh at the bad times, and regale the children I'll have one day with stories of when dear old dad went to war. So, why hasn’t Iraq made its way to my display case? Why have I not moved on to the next country, the next experience? Because a few months ago I signed up to go back to Iraq for another year.

The calculus in deciding to return for a second time is a complicated equation that includes many of the same numbers and variables that led me to volunteer the first time. The U.S. Mission in Iraq still needs dedicated professionals who care about what happens to Iraq and Iraqis. Iraq needs diplomats and development professionals who want to be there and, more than that, who’ve been there before and understand the lay of the land. As America’s attention span for Iraq has shortened and shifted eastward toward Afghanistan and Pakistan (or to whatever crisis has our attention today) the challenges of Iraq still require our very best efforts. I wrote last year that we were not finished in Iraq and I still firmly believe that. A journalist who has covered Iraq extensively over the past few years recently recalled the words of the former United States Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, who said, “just because you walk out of the movie doesn’t mean the movie’s over.”  If Iraq is, indeed, that movie, the reels are still spinning, the lights are still dimmed, and I am headed back into the theater.

As I prepare to roll the dice once again, my biggest concern this time around is actually not for my safety, but for something a bit more nuanced: will going back, this time to Baghdad, dash what optimism I gained in my first year?   I left Iraq in July of last year exhausted, but upbeat, inspired, and very hopeful. If you’ve read my previous blogs you know that my experience in Iraq was overwhelmingly positive.  Nestled away in my quiet province in the south, many of the problems Iraqis faced at the national level didn’t reach me. Living in a majority Shia province, the sectarian divide didn't rear its ugly head in my neighborhood. Muthanna didn’t have oil, so the political and physical conflicts that come hand-in-hand with the oil’s curse were, similarly, not an issue I dealt with. I focused on provincial-level reconstruction and explaining to the people of Muthanna what we were doing to help them in their own backyard.    I now wonder if I will find hope and inspiration in Baghdad. I wonder if the monumental challenges of Iraq, as seen from the nation’s capital, will provide me with opportunities to still be hopeful and inspired.

An Assistant Secretary of State I once worked for scolded a colleague of mine for including the word “hope” in a set of talking points for official use. “Folks,” he said sternly at a morning staff meeting, “here in the Bureau of Near East Affairs, we "urge," we "applaud,” we "condemn." Sometimes we even "strongly condemn." But, we don’t "hope." If you want “hope,” go to church. "Hope" is not a policy.” He was quite right, of course. Hope is not a policy.  Luckily, this blog isn’t about policy, so I’m free to hope for the best.

In this next job in Iraq, I’ll be tasked with doing a fair amount of talking on behalf of the United States (clearly, not a problem for those who know me). Yet, I will bring to Baghdad one of the same strategies that served me well during my tenure in Muthanna: listening - really listening - to Iraqis. With all the messaging, all the talking points, and all the press briefings I’ll work on, my ability to listen to what Iraqis are saying (and what they’re not saying) will, again, help me better understand the complexities of Iraq.

So, with that, stay tuned for more Wing Tips in Baghdad . . .