Posted by Bob Martin

David Pearce, retired from 35 years in the U.S. Diplomatic Corps, and son of former long-time member and Club Secretary, Duane Pearce, joined us last week and shared his observations from a career in diplomacy. “I wish Dad could be here today,” he said. “Rotary was very important in his life, and he always wanted me to come and speak, but we could never work it out.” David shared the story of his first posting to Iraq when his Dad gave him his Rotary pen to take with him. “At first, I declined it. I knew how important it was to him. It had his name imprinted on it, but he insisted. Just bring it back, he said.”

Pearce said he wanted to address the question of whether we needed diplomats in today’s world. He referred to the story of Mu‘awiya I, the 7th Century Caliph of the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate, who governed a complex array of states across the Mid-East and North Africa, and was asked, “How is it that you can rule this fractious country.” His answer, Pearce said, lay in the technique of being aligned with everyone as if connected by a hair, knowing when to yield and when to pull. “The wise ruler stays engaged,” Mu’awiya is reported to have said. “And avoids rupture.” It is costly not to engage, Pearce said, but the trick is to determine the right balance of engagement.

Pearce presented five general observations from his experiences in the diplomatic corps:

First, “Begin at the beginning.” This stratagem requires you to lay out your strategic purpose. When he was appointed Ambassador to Greece, Pearce said that the goal was to ensure that Greece remained part of the European Union. “The U.S. was interested in Greece remaining strong,” he said. “Part of that was because we wanted to decrease economic risk to the country, but part of it also was tied to the fact the country is important to our military strategy—the port at Souda Bay is the only one in Europe that allows the docking of an aircraft carrier.”

Second, “Mind the Five Ps.” Details matter, he said, reflecting on former Secretary of State James Baker’s admonition, “Poor Prep equals Piss Poor Performance.” Pearce said that not only do details matter, but expertise matters, and language matters. He said that he took the time to learn the language of the country where he was assigned so that he could sit down with native speakers and communicate.

Third, “Tend the Garden.” Pearce said: “We need allies, and they need us. Intel is not expertise, it’s just facts and figures. People who love a region know more. We cannot take friends for granted.”

Four, “Drink the coffee.” This means one must learn to be patient, he said. Pearce shared stories of working in Iraq as part of General Petraeus’s staff and visiting with various chieftains. “There was no specific request from them. We just sat and drank coffee.” But as time passed, trust built, and there came times when that patience resulted in strong cooperation that was important strategically.

Five, “Nothing is good.” Pearce referred again to Mu’awiya describing the current state of Iraq and the factions in, and around, the country, and their different viewpoints on Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution, which called for a referendum on Kirkuk, a city that lies in the heart of the country’s major oil-producing territory. “The Kurds controlled the city, and wanted a referendum in order to establish sovereignty. But it’s a multi-ethnic population, so there were others who objected to the Kurds being in charge. Since there was no clear agreement on a referendum, and there was pressure to have the UN take charge, I met with the leader of the Kurds alone for an hour and we spoke in Arabic. In the end, nothing happened.” Pearce’s point was that since there was fear, there might be unrest or rebellion....the fact that nothing happened was good. “It takes a lot of work,” he said, “for nothing to happen.”


(Photo L-R: Past President Bob Traill, David Pearce, and President Don Zillman.)

In closing, David Pearce said that “I can’t think of anything else I would rather have done than be a part of the diplomatic corps.”

Questions from the members brought lengthy responses describing the tax issues in Greece: “It’s a myth that Greeks don’t work hard. The issue is that the EU creditors want Greece to do more with economic reform and decrease the number of non-performing loans.” He provided an historical perspective of the issues in Iraq and the “tectonic plates” of culture and history involved. He discussed the changing internal dynamics in Turkey and the lack of choices that the Kurds had within and without Turkey for alliances. “It’s extremely complicated.” 

Commenting on North Korea, he said “Ultimatums are not a good idea.” And a long discussion on the issues of Afghanistan, which according to Pearce have deep roots in the U.S. decision not to engage the Afghani officer corps in training after 1989, which resulted in a generation of officers in the Afghan Army who we subsequently decided we needed, but had no effective way of communicating with because we lacked any personal connections with them.

Asked if the State Department understood his rule number one, Pearce responded that he doesn’t understand how you can do business in diplomacy if you cut one-third of your budget and fail to appoint deputies and under-secretaries. “Much work needs to be done on the team side,” he said.