Foreign Service Resignations: Why I Stayed.

• Author: Datta, Christopher

In 2002, after the 9/11 attacks, some of my friends in the Foreign Service resigned from the State Department over our invasion of Iraq. They felt they could not, in good conscience, represent a government that started an unnecessary, brutal and doomed war in a country that had nothing to do with the attack on our nation. We see resignations again today in protest against the policies of this president.

I personally agreed that the invasion of Iraq was a colossal blunder that would, and did, cost countless lives and treasure.

But unlike those who resigned, I stayed.

I stayed because as a Foreign Service Officer I took an oath to defend our country and our constitution. I disagreed with George W. Bush, but I believed in democracy and he was the man our country selected to be president.

Foreign Service Officers have a great deal of latitude to choose where to serve. I had Arabic language skills and was asked to go to Iraq. I turned down the assignment. Instead, I took an assignment to Juba, South Sudan. I did not support our policy in Iraq, but this was an assignment I could believe in. South Sudan had suffered horribly at the hands of the government in Khartoum, and the U.S. had been instrumental in bringing an end to fighting between the two sides.

In late March and early April of 2012, fighting resumed. Much to my surprise, the South Sudanese army kicked ass and drove Sudanese forces into a headlong retreat, with the South occupying a large oil rich territory essential to Khartoum. It was a serious and embarrassing defeat for Sudan. Total war was coming.

I was the acting ambassador to South Sudan and I had a tough message for the senior leadership of the government of South Sudan, many of whom were my friends, that the war had to end.

I received assistance from Special Envoy to Sudan Ambassador Princeton Lyman who flew to Juba to help pressure South Sudan to withdraw its forces from the captured territory.

Ambassador Lyman and I visited the office of Pagan Amum, a senior leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement at the time, the ruling political party in South Sudan. I had known Pagan for some time.

We delivered the strong message that, although we were the friends of South Sudan, the government had to withdraw for its own good or face a debilitating war that might well destroy the country.

Pagan was an experienced negotiator who had his back to the wall and he knew it. So he pulled out the only card he had left to play, which was...