Debating Myself

Parliament finally convened on Monday after an election on February 18

So the more I read about this missile strike in Pakistan, the less sense it makes to me. It seems completely ill-timed and appears to have been carried out with little regard at all to the political situation in Pakistan post-election. According to the Financial Times, this is the latest guess about what has happened:

At least fourteen people were killed in a remote Pakistani region along the Afghan border in a missile strike on Sunday believed to have been carried out by a pilotless drone operated by the CIA… “The target was a cluster of homes where Arabs and their Pakistani friends had assembled” said one Pakistani official.

Witnesses said a drone dropped seven missiles on the sprawling, mud-brick compound about three miles outside Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.

The timing seems a bit off though, considering Parliament was set to convene the next day (and did so):

Pakistan’s Parliament meets today [the day after the missile strike] for the first time since three opposition parties agreed to form a coalition government after defeating supporters of President Pervez Musharraf in general elections a month ago. Lawmakers will be sworn in and will choose a speaker and deputy speaker for the 342-member National Assembly, the official Associated Press of Pakistan reported.

But, more importantly, the fact that previous such missile strikes have caused a bit of instability on their own (again from the Financial Times):

In the past, Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban have responded to drone attacks with suicide bombings across the country.

This new threat to instability, in the form of a retaliatory terror campaign conducted after the airstrikes, comes on the heels of violent campaign season, some of which it seems is clear the CIA was responding to (AP):

Just Saturday, a bomb exploded at an Islamabad restaurant popular with foreigners, killing a Turkish woman and wounding 12 people, including four FBI personnel… Saturday’s attack was the first in Pakistan’s quiet capital in several months, and the first targeting foreigners here in more than a year.

Public sentiment in Pakistan for such retaliation by the US military is thin at best:

Pakistanis have also expressed anger over U.S. attacks on militants in the country’s lawless tribal regions along the Afghan border, which often have tacit approval from Musharraf’s government.

So why anger the Pakistanis more? The Pakistani election should be seen as a victory for democratic reform in the region having resulted in the relatively peaceful ousting of a military dictator from the government–hopefully:

The PPP, the party led by Benazir Bhutto before her assassination in December, is forming a coalition with the Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz, the party led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and the Awami National Party. Sharif has vowed to challenge Musharraf’s rule while Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto’s widower and the PPP leader, hasn’t ruled out working with the president.

Of course the US has long been close allies with Musharraf and perhaps the new coalition government will be more anti-American and less supportive of US-led efforts in the war on terror in the region. Yet it is hard to see how peppering the Pakistani countryside with seven missiles from a CIA drone could do anything to increase support from the fledgling Pakistani government, and it seems really clear that it is going to spur further anti-American sentiment in the country.

I’m all for fighting the real war on terror and striking at terrorist camps wherever they may be. I may even be receptive to the idea that state sovereignty is largely mythical along borders in the Middle East and pursuing potential terrorist operatives trumps concerns about violating state sovereignty. I even believe it in the best interest of the Pakistanis to let the US fight the brunt of this battle for them, after all it was pro-Taliban elements who struck on Monday (the day of Parliament’s first session):

A bomb blast at a police building in northwestern Pakistan Monday killed three officers and wounded five, state media reported. Several wounded people were rushed to hospital after the attack near the main town of Mingora in the volatile Swat valley where Pakistan’s military has been fighting pro-Taliban militants, police officer Karamat Shah said.

So the question is: why mess with the volatile situation right now? Were the targets such a high priority that the larger political concerns were put aside? Or was this just a revenge operation? I sympathize deeply with the loss of FBI agents killed in the line of duty–they were serving their country in one of the most important ways–but the timing of justice here may wind up getting more Americans and Pakistanis killed in the long-run and threatening the peaceful transition of power in Pakistan.

The strike occurred in northwest Pakistan. Image courtesy of http://www.wordtravels.com/

Many say that we are fighting the war in Iraq at the cost of fighting the “real war on terror” in Afghanistan. If that is true, then what do we make out of the US war on terror being conducted in… Pakistan?

That’s right, apparently the US has launched air strikes in Pakistan–including a strike today killing 18 in a tribal village.

Is it really a good idea to mess with the sovereignty of an already highly unstable and tenuous regional ally?

More on this as it develops.

A major diplomatic breakdown is occurring right now in South America.

Chavez (left) hugs Uribe. Shouldn't Uribe have been worried here?

This story has been relegated to the back burner behind the upcoming Democratic primary on Tuesday, among other stories, but it merits some attention here. I will just list some bullet point facts from various sources to give a sense of what is going on, then we’ll move into some brief, and some [being honest] premature analysis, of the situation:

• Colombia’s military ventured one mile into Ecuadoran territory on Saturday to kill a top FARC rebel commander, Raul Reyes.
• Thousands of Ecuadoran and Venezuelan troops have been ordered to Colombia’s border to show outrage at this incursion.
• Hugo Chavez has expelled the Colombian diplomatic mission from Venezuela.

Is this really a region on the brink of war? No, and several well researched news stories point out the following reasons the conflict is unlikely to escalate militarily:

• Trade—Colombian trade with Venezuela is worth $5 billion a year. Trade to Ecuador tops $2 billion a year, including vital foodstuffs. Colombia also supplies 10 percent of Ecuador’s electricity needs. (Follow the link for some great analysis of economic implications from Bloomberg News)
• Legitimacy of the Raid—Colombia did not raid Ecuador for resources, but to capture (or kill) a top rebel commander. What they found, contained in three encrypted computer discs, was worth well over its weight in gold.
  • “One document, apparently written in February, suggests Venezuela recently gave the rebels $300 million, while another suggests the rebels were shopping for 50 kilos of uranium…”
• Political concerns—This article from Time Magazine does a good job of going through the political implications of any border conflict among the three nations. Most importantly:
  • Colombia can’t afford another front in its perpetual battle against the FARC rebels
  • Chavez can’t afford an unpopular war when he is seeking a constitutional referendum
    • Venezuelan oil industry couldn’t handle the uncertainty a conflict would bring
  • International pressure on both Uribe and Chavez to be civilized
  • The perceived, and perhaps real, military superiority of the veteran Colombian army that has been engaged and active for the past several years against the FARC rebels

So why should we care about a little sabre rattling in South America? For one thing it is of particular interest to the US for a several reasons.

• US dependency on oil—Venezuela crude oil supplies remain important to US energy policy
• Colombia as a key US ally in Latin America
• The US role in training and assisting the Colombian military in its fight against FARC rebels and wider role in the “War on Drugs”
• The role of US intelligence services in the raid into Ecuador
• The longstanding clash between Hugo Chavez and the United States, particularly US President Bush

Chavez holds up his battle plans.

Any conflict, even a minor border skirmish, would pit a major US ally in the region (Colombia) against the fledgling alliance of a major US agitator (Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela). For now the evidence seems to be clearly pointing toward another case of Chavez’s showcase brinkmanship, and in all likelihood tensions should be reduced and relations normalized within the next couple of weeks. However, the taste of this clash may linger (especially the cutting of diplomatic ties, even if only briefly).

The divide between the US friendly Latin American countries and Chavez friendly Latin American countries may have just grown deeper still. The effects of this will be felt for awhile, and is something to monitor considering the persistent US interests in the region outlined above.