As a wire service reporter, he covered revolution in Lisbon, civil war in Beirut, and political and economic change in the Arab world.

Pearce entered the Foreign Service in January 1982, serving first as a vice consul and political officer in Riyadh.

In 1987-88, he studied Arabic at the Foreign Service Institute field school in Tunis, then became chief of the political section at the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait.

From September 2001 to July 2003, he was Director of the Department of State’s Office of Northern Gulf Affairs, with responsibility for Iraq and Iran.

He retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in November 2016, and is now a painter who also sells his work online via his company David D. Pearce Fine Art.