Having worked for the State Department as a contractor in the recent past and been to about 25 embassies and consulates worldwide, I have a fairly good understanding of the Foreign Service Officer (FSO) mentality. Which is why the backlash to directed assignments to Iraq – for the anticipated shortfall of only 48 billets, currently – comes as no surprise:
At a town hall meeting in the department’s main auditorium attended by hundreds of Foreign Service officers, some of them criticized fundamental aspects of State’s personnel policies in Iraq.
[. . .]
Service in Iraq is “a potential death sentence,” said one man who identified himself as a 46-year Foreign Service veteran. “Any other embassy in the world would be closed by now,” he said to sustained applause.
[. . .]
Foreign Service officers swear an oath to serve wherever the secretary of state sends them, but no directed assignments have been ordered since the late 1960s, during the Vietnam War.
[. . .]
At least three department employees have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
No one familiar with the average FSO should be surprised. As noted in the article, FSOs all take an oath to serve overseas where needed. In reality many try to homestead in Europe and the nicer spots in Asia and shun tours in most other places, especially Africa and the Middle East. While they can’t be blamed for wanting to live and work in a more comfortable environment, they are shirking part of what is built into the job description.
Someone with a bitterly ironic sense of humor might call forced deployments a bit of poetic justice for failed diplomacy, but I don’t think any amount of diplomacy would have helped with Iraq (nor will it with North Korea or Iran – the “Axis of Evil” was a far more apt description than most are willing to admit).
I have not (yet) served in Iraq or Afghanistan, but I know that it’s only a matter of time – I’m a reservist. While I won’t like it, I’m not going to complain. FSOs should buck up, or resign, but they should not be whining.
“Foreign Service officers swear an oath to serve wherever the secretary of state sends them”
They do???
Foreign Service Officer’s Oath
“I ________, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
They - or some - are being ordered to Iraq, so those are part of the duties they’ve sworn to discharge. That, along with the mobility agreement, does in fact mean they have agree to serve where assigned.