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Kurt Wallace: This is Kurt Wallace and our guest today on Rare is Peter van Buren, 24-year veteran of the State Department, spent a year in Iraq. He is the author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. Peter, thanks for being with us today on Rare.
Peter van Buren: It’s my pleasure to be here Kurt, this is an important topic
Kurt Wallace: Before we start talking about the situation at hand in Iraq. Would you mind indulging our listeners at some of the absurd government operations you encountered during your tour there?
Peter van Buren: Absolutely, I spent a year in Iraq leading two provincial reconstruction teams. These were the way that the United States was going to win the war in Iraq. We were charged with rebuilding the country that the United States had previously destroyed. The problem was is that we did not have a plan to do this. Nor did we apparently have much adult supervision.
I watched as the United States spent American taxpayer money to encourage women to build open bakeries on streets that didn’t have water or electricity. I watched as we spent money that drove up the price of veterinary vaccines and then later vaccines for children by 1000%. We were overpaying and the vendors raised prices as such that when we left an area the local doctors could not afford to purchase these things to help the people. We poured money into water and sewer projects that were not connected to the grid. We gave away literally $500 or what we called micro-grants to people. With conditions, no strings attached – the theory of it was that they might go out and start businesses. We paid for trash to be picked up. And we paid at such high rates that doctors were leaving their practices in order to pick up garbage for us, because they were getting paid more and the work was steadier.
I came to find that we were not only wasting taxpayer money, we were not only putting our lives and American soldiers lives at risk needlessly, but we were actually doing far more harm than good in Iraq. And I was compelled to write the book. We meant well based on my experiences. And in return for pointing out these things to the American people, my employer at the time, the Department of State, moved to fire me after 24 years. I was defended by some good lawyers and ended up retiring on my own terms.
Kurt Wallace: Well, thanks for going through that. Let’s go ahead and talk about the situation we’re involved in today. With US involvement in this country. Let’s try to walk through step by step how things have led to the crisis that we have in Iraq.
Peter van Buren: There are two levels to the crisis, in such, that I’m thinking if we publish a new edition of “We Meant Well” I’m going to change the title to ‘I Told You So’. Because what’s happening right now in Iraq is so inevitable was so predictable that it angers me to actually hear the president talking about this as if its something that the United States recently uncovered.
The United States in 2003, in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, destroyed civil society in Iraq. We tore apart the things that were holding together a desperate nation. There were tensions that always existed between the three large groups. The Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds. And I’m using those terms in kind of a short hand. We understand that within whatever we call Sunnis, there are dozens, if not more, of subgroups and things like that. But we use the shorthand here.
We destroyed the connective tissue if you will that held these groups together and we never replaced it with anything. In the course of America’s occupation, the insurgency, whatever you want to call it, is a story of those three groups struggling for control struggling for power, struggling to carve out their own area of control, if not nation. With the United States stuck in the middle of it, essentially being the common enemy of everyone. When we left in 2011, those tensions, those animosities didn’t go away because we left. They simply metastasized into the situation that we have today, only its worse now. The thing that has changed significantly this round of violence, is the incredible influence of outside actors. I’m going to take a deep breath Kurt and stick with me on this one, ok?
Kurt Wallace: Sure, yeah.
Peter van Buren: So, we have the Kurds, who are not connected very much with the mainstream Shiite government, struggling independently, but with the support of the Shiite government, which is supported and funded largely by the United States, in cooperation with the Iranians, who significantly exert pressure in Iraq following the U.S. vacuum that was created.
Meanwhile the Syrians, who the United States was opposing and taking to depose Assad not too long ago. The Syrians are now back, sort of, on our side, bombing Sunni targets on their border because those Sunnis actually threatened the Syrian regime of Assad. Meanwhile what we call ISIS is actually a coalition of things including now more increasingly al-Qaeda influences coming from the outside, is funded by American allies, Saudi and Kuwait. Meanwhile the Turks are also upset on their border because the Kurds struggle seems to spill over and the United States is supplying weapons to the Kurds which ultimately may be turned against the Turks a NATO ally.
Kurt Wallace: So, this has broadened into multiple countries who are all involved in trying to get their cut, so to speak, of what Iraq could be for them?
Peter van Buren: They’re both trying to get their cut and to protect their own interests. What is happening in Iraq now, both because of the artificiality of the borders. You know these borders were drawn after WWI and did not respect the actual tribal and religious alliances. Because of the porousness of the borders and the desire for the neighboring countries to not have this conflict spill over into their national areas, there are many many players. And by ripping through it at high-speed there, as I just did, my goal is to make sure listeners understand the incredible complexity of all this. How you cannot isolate a single factor as the United States is trying to do right now. And expect that it would be something that you can do on a one to one basis.
In fact everything that happens in Iraq now including America’s intervention will resonate throughout the great Middle East, if not globally, if the Iranians get involved in a much bigger way. Or if, God help us, Putin decides to step in once again.
Kurt Wallace: Now the U.S. involvement over the years has been pushed by a neoconservative agenda. Neocons had pretty much worn out all of their talking points and their arguments for being involved in Iraq. Is there at this point a strategical or tactical success story for any U.S. involvement in this region at this point or in Iraq?
Peter van Buren: Absolutely not! What we have seen over two administrations is nothing but digging the hole deeper. The initial invasion was a horrible mistake. The handling of the occupation made that mistake worse. The fact that the United States is reinserting itself on one and a half sides at minimum of three-sided conflict is simply making that mistake even bloodier and more painful for the United States national interests. As well, of course, as the people on the ground who once again are dying under the hands of American supplied weapons.
Kurt Wallace: So really the libertarian approach would be (as I’m a libertarian), would be to stop being involved at all. But many say you can’t do nothing. I mean, there’s concerns about the Christians that are being slaughtered there but really that was set up by us taking out Saddam Hussein, which he protected the Christians.
Peter van Buren: Yes, the important thing to remember about any of these minority groups. And no one wants to see people suffer. I mean that’s not what I’m advocating here or anyone is advocating. And I’m sure that’s what your position is either. First, over half of Iraqis Christians were killed or fled the country during America’s nine-year occupation. And so if we have great concerns about protecting Christians its kind of, were kind of very late to that game. The same thing for many of these minority groups.
The United States must understand that not every world situation requires American military interaction. And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing over the course of the last several years is stepping into every pile of sticky stuff on the ground that we could find. This kind of blatant almost idiotic decisiveness does not support any national goal of the United States. And in fact often makes things worse. And that is the response to the “We must do something.” If you’re standing in front of a burning building and the only options that you’re considering are throwing gasoline into the fire or run away – well in that scenario doing nothing is probably the wise move. Injecting more weapons, more uncertainty, more third parties into this conflict is not the equivalent of “We have to do something”. Sometimes either standing back, pulling out as you have said there. Or considering some other tools in the toolbox such as more thoughtful diplomacy are the right answers. Military intervention is rarely perhaps if ever the right answer.
Kurt Wallace: Well diplomacy is an option I think that libertarians could go for some diplomacy. What are your suggestions there?
Peter van Buren: Well, I mean the reason why military intervention seems so appealing is because it has such an immediate feedback. Oh, there’s people suffering on this mountain top, let’s bomb around them and then everything is going to be okay. And there’s some short-term fulfillment if you will, immediate gratification if you pardon the thinking light of the situation that way. Diplomacy by its nature is a slow process. It is accumulative process and it’s not something that going to solve a problem that has been growing for 10 years or more. It’s not going to solve that problem overnight.
Right now the big emphasis out of the White house is how we’re gonna have a new government in Iraq and Maliki may or may not disappear. And the new government is going to be inclusive and there’s gonna be rainbows and unicorns everywhere. It doesn’t work that way. The problems in Iraq go back many many years. The most immediate set of them as we talked about goes back 10 years or so. The Sunni, Shia, Kurd issues go back hundreds if not more years. That is not going to be resolved by next weekend. When the president does decide to come back from his vacation in Martha’s Vineyard he’s going to find that even if there’s a new government in Iraq it is not going to have resolved any of these problems. It may be a starting point to resolution. But it takes a long time and by long time we’re talking 10 years if not much longer.
So, diplomacy is an important tool but people do have to understand that it is not immediate gratification. And that have to understand that putting off the immediate gratification of doing something is the only hope of a long-term solution. That is what diplomacy is all about I practiced it for 24 years at the Department of State. I know where it can succeed and where it fails. But I’ve also seen military intervention and I have seen that fail over and over and over again.
Kurt Wallace: Peter van Buren, your website is WeMeantWell.com your book We Meant Well, we appreciate you coming on today.
Peter van Buren: Kurt its my pleasure. Call again anytime.
